How Starmer outsmarted the right over Chagos deal

One of the many surprising takeaways from the Trump-Starmer meeting in the Oval Office was the apparent willingness of the new administration to approve the recent treaty between Britain and Mauritius on the future of a UK-US military base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

- SEAN O'GRADY

Many on the right, notably Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch, confidently predicted that Trump would denounce the deal and chastise the prime minister.

Instead, Trump said: “We’re going to have some discussions about that very soon, and I have a feeling it’s going to work out very well.” He added that it was a “very long-term, powerful lease, a very strong lease” and that “I think we’ll be inclined to go along with your country”.

So, what's the problem?

Broadly speaking, it is that UK sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory (Biot), which comprises the US military base on Diego Garcia and the other Chagos Islands, is not recognised in international law and the United Nations. This means its status is unsettled, and subject to continual legal actions, complicated by separate, but obviously related, attempts by the Chagossians forced from their homes in the 1960s to accommodate the base, to gain redress. If the UK, and, by extension, the US, were to be prepared to ignore (non-binding) rulings by the International Court and the United Nations then the matter would remain unresolved, if not dormant. But Britain and America appear determined to make the base “honest”.

Why is sovereignty disputed?