If you were to sail around the Indian Ocean for long enough, chances are you’d run into one of the 60 islands comprising the Chagos Archipelago. Until yesterday, those islands had been sovereign British territory since 1814. After decades of disputes, Keir Starmer announced he will cede control of the land to neighbouring Mauritius, where many Chagossians now live after being expelled between 1968-1973.
The nature of their expulsion is the source of some controversy. In 1966, we struck a deal with the United States to give it a 50-year lease on an airbase on Diego Garcia – the largest island in the archipelago. The Chagossians were promptly moved on and the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion in 2019 that Britain should hand the islands over to Mauritius.
Given recent headlines about Starmer’s appetite for freebies, it should come as no surprise that he has followed the ICJ’s advice and given the islands to the Mauritians for, well, free. Mauritius will be allowed to start a programme of resettlement on Chagos, but in exchange for vast rents, we and the Americans will be able to maintain the airbase at Diego Garcia for at least another 99 years.
In a joint statement from Starmer and the Mauritian PM, they said this was crucial in ‘addressing the wrongs of the past’. Fine. But what’s the point?
In ceding sovereignty of the islands, Labour have wilfully created a strategic blindspot for Britain and our allies. Sitting in the Indian Ocean, the islands are in the centre of a region hotly contested by China and India. The Mauritian Government is friendly towards the former, having signed a trade deal with Beijing in 2021. This, to quote Tory leadership hopeful Tom Tugendhat, opens up the possibility to China ‘gaining a military foothold in the Indian Ocean’.
So in the name of anti-colonial posturing, Labour have not only ceded territory, but have potentially given up a vital geopolitical interest to our most powerful adversary. Welcome to the world of David Lammy’s ‘progressive realism’.
According to the man himself, this is what the word salad means:
Progressive Realism advocates using realist means to pursue progressive ends. For the British government, that requires tough-minded honesty about the United Kingdom, the balance of power, and the state of the world. But instead of using the logic of realism solely to accumulate power, progressive realism uses it in the service of just goals – for example climate change, defending democracy, and advancing the world’s economic development. It is the pursuit of ideals without the delusions about what is achievable.
On some of these points, he’s spot on. ‘Tough-minded honesty’ is certainly needed at the moment. A regional conflict looks all but inevitable in the Middle East as Iran fires rockets into Tel Aviv. Meanwhile, war continues to rage in Eastern Europe between Russia and Ukraine, and China, while facing economic uncertainty, controls the third-strongest military in the world.
So far, Lammy’s approach has done little to protect Britain’s interests in this quagmire. Take his decision to impose an arms embargo against Israel. Suspending 30 licences for arms exports to our most important Middle Eastern ally not only makes the blindest bit of difference to Israel’s conduct in Gaza, but also gives succour to the likes of the Iranians and the Houthis, who would as happily see London decimated as they would Jerusalem.
Another warzone which has no need for Lammy’s progressivism is Nagorno-Karabakh, the region over which Armenians and Azerbaijanis have been fighting since the 1990s. Yet in his recent blog, the Foreign Secretary weighed in on the conflict, praising Azerbaijan for ‘liberating’ lost land. This is despite the Amernians’ repeated claims of being ethnically cleansed at the hands of their neighbours. Shadow Foreign Minister Alicia Kearns described Lammy’s comments as ‘totally inappropriate’, calling his judgement into question.
That’s what Lammy’s progressive realism comes down to – a staggering misjudgement of the international situation. Be it in the Indian Ocean, the Middle East or the Caucasus, the friendly rules-based order the Foreign Secretary envisions will always remain a pipe dream. Britain’s enemies prove time and again that they are prepared to play by their own rules. We have an alarmingly small army and the naval prestige we relied on for so long is a distant memory: we cannot afford to put progressive gestures before strengthening our strategic position in the world.
From the days of Tony Blair, through to Jeremy Corbyn and now under Keir Starmer, foreign policy has long confounded the Labour Party. If Starmer wants to truly prove his party has changed, then reversing this trend should be priority number one.
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