Rishi Sunak has been warned that surrendering the Chagos Islands to Mauritius will endanger Britain’s national security and put the Falklands and Gibraltar at risk.
In November last year the UK agreed to open negotiations with Mauritius over the future of the Chagos Islands, a British overseas territory in the Indian Ocean.
The decision represented a major reversal of the government’s policy and came after two significant legal defeats in international courts.
A paper by Policy Exchange warns that ceding control of the Chagos Islands would be a “major self-inflicted blow” and represent a significant strategic victory for China.
The archipelago includes Diego Garcia, which the UK has leased to the US for a military base since the 1960s. The strategic atoll, which is in striking distance of east Africa, the Middle East and southeast Asia, has become indispensable for America’s armed forces.
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In a forward to the Policy Exchange report Lord West of Spithead, a former first sea lord, writes: “Diego Garcia is a strategic jewel, possession of which is crucial for security in the region and hence our national security. It is no exaggeration to say that Diego Garcia – the largest of the Chagos Islands – hosts the most strategically important US air and logistics base in the Indian Ocean and is vital to the defence of the UK and our allies.
“How on earth can the government explain a decision to negotiate with Chinese-aligned Mauritius to hand over sovereignty of the strategically vital island of Diego Garcia, an island which is located some 2152 kilometres from Mauritius itself? It would be a colossal mistake and one which opposition parties in parliament would also be complicit in, given they are supporting the government’s stance.”
The paper highlights concerns about China’s influence over Mauritius and the significant levels of investment it has in the country. “The depth of the Sino-Mauritius relationship is evident in the 47 official Chinese development finance projects on the island,” the report says.
“An agreement with Mauritius to surrender sovereignty over the Chagos Islands threatens to undermine core British security interests, and those of key allies, most notably the United States. By agreeing the very principle of a Mauritian claim over Diego Garcia they are also putting at risk other British Overseas Territories such as the Falkland Islands.”
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The roots of the dispute go back to 1965, when Britain cut off the Chagos islands from Mauritius, then a British colony. The Chagossians were dismissed at the time by a British official as “some few Tarzans or Man Fridays” and about 1,500 were shipped mostly to Mauritius and the Seychelles where they have struggled for acceptance. Some islanders came to Britain.
In 2019 the International Court of Justice, the UN’s highest court, ruled that the continuing British occupation of the islands was illegal and the Chagos Islands were rightfully part of Mauritius. Last year the Hamburg-based International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea ruled that the British claim to the archipelago was illegal.
The Policy Exchange paper states that the link between Mauritius and the Chagos Islands “amounts to little more than an accident of colonial history”. It says that Mauritius agreed to sell the islands and renounce its rights over them for £3 million. Mauritius respected the terms of that agreement for a generation, the paper says, until it claimed sovereignty over the islands in 1982.
“Far from being an integral part of Mauritius, the linkage of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, more than 2,000 kilometres away, arose purely as an accident of colonial history, which was then perpetuated for reasons of convenience.”
Surrendering the Chagos Islands would undermine the UK’s sovereignty over other overseas territories, the paper states, highlighting the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar.
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It says: “The government should recognise that ceding the Chagos Islands, especially on mistaken legal premises, would be an irresponsible act, which would put our strategic interests – and the interests of our closest allies – in danger, while also recklessly undermining fundamental principles of international law.”
