Last year, a Mauritian politician raised eyebrows in Britain when he told a political rally that ‘England has agreed to pay us a compensation’ to the tune of ‘many billions of rupees’ as part of the deal to hand over the Chagos islands to Mauritius. Still, a billion Mauritian rupees only converts to around £17 million, so observers were none the wiser about the financial provisions of the still-secret agreement between the two countries.
If the deal goes through, Britain will be paying a king’s ransom to give away sovereign territory to a foreign power with no rightful claim to it
Now we know that ‘many billions of rupees’ also means ‘many billions of pounds’. This week, it was reported that the 99-year lease for Diego Garcia, which hosts the world’s most important military base, will cost Britain £9 billion, or almost a fifth of the annual defence budget. Mauritius, faced with a large budget deficit, has torn up the original agreement, concluded under a previous government, in order to ask for more money. Instead of using the opportunity to walk away from the negotiations, the Foreign Office is now offering to front-load the payments.
The £9 billion figure, it should also be said, does not include a separate aid package to Mauritius, which was announced in conjunction with the Chagos agreement.
It would be one thing if the £9 billion in Danegeld brought significant advantages to Britain. But there is nothing of the sort. As we make clear in a new report for Policy Exchange, and contrary to the public insinuations of some ministers, Britain is under no legal obligation whatsoever to give the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, whose government happily sold them to Britain in the 1960s. If the deal goes through, Britain will be paying a king’s ransom to give away sovereign territory to a foreign power with no rightful claim to it.
In fact, even setting aside the money, the deal leaves Britain far worse off. The £9 billion only covers a lease for Diego Garcia, where the US/UK base is located, but not the other islands, which would be immediately handed over to Mauritius. And while 99 years seems like a long time, history is littered with examples of countries reneging on promises solemnly entered into (a Mauritian minister has already said that the lease, which has an option for renewal, is too long). In any case, it is highly likely that the base will remain strategically crucial a century from now, so that the deal kicks the can down the road at best.
By claiming the Chagos islands, Mauritius is breaking the binding agreement it concluded with the United Kingdom in 1965 to allow the islands to remain British. In recent years, China has been assiduously courting Mauritius: all it takes is one election for a government hostile to Britain’s interests to assume power and tear up the 99-year lease. Then what?
Whitehall has defended the deal, whose details it still refuses to divulge, by claiming that it has the support of the United States, by far the most important user of the base on Diego Garcia. Setting aside the private reservations reportedly expressed by Biden administration officials, in less than two weeks there will be a new government in town.
Several of its leading lights, including Marco Rubio, the next Secretary of State, have already come out against the handover deal. Sir Keir Starmer’s government has been recently trying to build links with the Trump administration: but by reportedly trying to rush the deal through right before the presidential inauguration it risks alienating the new president on day one.
And there are the interests of the Chagossians, whom Britain treated disgracefully by expelling them from their homelands. Chagossians, many of whom are British nationals, are opposed to the deal almost to the last man and woman. Some of them have even braved arrest – denying Mauritius’ ‘sovereignty’ is punishable by ten years’ imprisonment – to protest against the deal. The fact that Foreign Office ministers have consistently refused to meet with Chagossian groups to discuss the deal is evidence that, deep down, they know that what they are trying to do is indefensible.
Whether you agree with them or not, most major political decisions are defensible in one way or another. The Chagos deal is different: there is no way in which it can be justified, whether it be in terms of national interest or morality. The British government would do well to use Mauritius’ rejection of the financial provisions to walk away from a deal which, if passed, would represent a low point in the history of British foreign policy.
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