Britain’s reckless surrender of the Chagos Islands is an insult to America

US bombers at the base on Diego Garcia. Britain will pay to lease the island back from Mauritius
US bombers at the base on Diego Garcia. Britain will pay to lease the island back from Mauritius - Getty Images Contributor

Britain’s socialist Labour Government continues to make a fool of itself on the world stage. Jonathan Powell, the Prime Minister’s national security adviser, is set to race to Washington in a desperate and humiliating attempt to save the ghastly Chagos Islands deal, which has been backed by the increasingly irrelevant lame duck Biden presidency, but not by the Trump administration that will soon replace it.

The Chagos Islands have been governed by Britain since 1814, but are about to be handed over to Mauritius, with zero respect for the sovereignty and self-determination of the actual people of the Islands, or for mounting concerns in Washington.

Significantly, the Chagos Islands are also home to the massively important US B-52 bomber base of Diego Garcia, which is vital to America’s strategic plans to combat Chinese military power in the Asia-Pacific. In an act of complete insanity, the UK is relinquishing control over the Islands while pledging to pay an annual fee amounting to millions of pounds of British taxpayer money to lease Diego Garcia for 99 years.

Unfortunately for Sir Keir Starmer and David Lammy, who have championed the deal, Mauritius’s new prime minister has significant reservations about it, and the incoming US administration is expressing major concerns. Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has already reportedly declared that the deal provides China with an opportunity to gather valuable intelligence that “poses a serious threat to our national security interests”.

It is simply astonishing that the Labour Government is seeking to go ahead with this nefarious agreement, despite growing opposition from the incoming US presidency as well as the newly-elected government of Mauritius. This disastrous deal is a knife in the back for Britain’s closest friend and ally, and has completely failed to take into account that the Biden administration will be history in January.

Starmer is clearly seeking to sneak this deal through while Biden is still in office as a fait accompli. It is incredibly disrespectful towards the President-elect, and a move that could seriously damage relations with the Trump presidency if it goes ahead.

As we saw with the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, the Biden White House is exceptionally reckless on the world stage, and has given its backing to the Chagos deal with no serious consideration for America’s long-term interests. If this deal still goes ahead despite the opposition of the government of Mauritius itself because of a spurious earlier ruling from the UN International Court of Justice, it will be a massive gamble on the future of Diego Garcia.

How can the UK guarantee that a different government in Mauritius would not end the lease over Diego Garcia and eventually hand control over to Communist China for a lucrative fee? This is a dangerous leap into the dark, and a monumentally stupid move by Starmer’s government, which has no doubt been greatly welcomed by Beijing.

The issue is so critically important to the United States that President Trump should sink the agreement, and send it to the bottom of the Indian Ocean where it belongs. Trump should torpedo the deal with the same resolve that Margaret Thatcher demonstrated when she sank the Belgrano during the Falklands War.

My former boss Lady Thatcher would have hated the Chagos deal as a horrendous surrender to Beijing, as well as to British and US-hating supranational elites who sneer at national sovereignty and self-determination. She would also have been appalled by the way in which this agreement fundamentally undermines America’s security – and ultimately the Special Relationship.

This is one of the worst agreements of the modern era, and the United States should condemn it and consign it to the dust bin of history. Labour’s reckless folly must not come at America’s expense. No agreement or treaty deciding the future of Diego Garcia should be signed without the support of the new US administration elected by the American people.


Nile Gardiner is a former aide to Margaret Thatcher and is based in Washington, DC