Chagos Islands deal paused by last-minute legal action

The government has temporarily been banned from concluding talks on the Chagos Islands deal by a last-minute injunction by a High Court judge.

At 02:25 BST Mr Justice Goose granted “interim relief” to two Chagossian women who had brought a case against the Foreign Office.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had been expected to attend a virtual signing ceremony with representatives of the Mauritian government on Thursday morning.

The agreement would see the UK hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, but allow the UK and US to continue using a military base located on the Indian Ocean archipelago for an initial period of 99 years.

The UK government is yet to set out the estimated payments the British taxpayer would make to Mauritius as part of the deal, but it is expected to run into the billions.

A hearing on the case began shortly after 10:30.

The legal action was brought by two Chagossian women, Bernadette Dugasse and Bertrice Pompe, who were both born on Diego Garcia, the largest of the islands, and would like to be able to return.

In October, the two countries said that under the deal Mauritius would be “free to implement a programme of resettlement” on the islands, excluding Diego Garcia, which is home to the UK-US military base.

In a pre-action letter, lawyers for the two women said the Chagossian people have unlawfully not been given a say in the future of the islands, despite being the native inhabitants.

They also said that they did not trust Mauritius to treat the Chagossians fairly, and that they would face “severe obstacles” as British citizens who do not hold Mauritian nationality, including possible racial discrimination and the loss of the possibility of returning.

Earlier this year, their lawyer Michael Polak said: “The government’s attempt to give away the Chagossians’ homeland whilst failing to hold a formal consultation with the Chagossian people is a continuation of their terrible treatment by the authorities in the past.

The UK government said the deal “is the right thing to protect the British people and our national security”.

But, along with the Mauritian government, it would not comment on the legal proceedings.

On Thursday, representatives of the Chagossian community met Foreign Office Secretary David Lammy and minister Stephen Doughty, for discussions on the sovereignty of the territory.

In a call immediately after the meeting, Jemmy Simon, from the Chagossian Voices group, told the BBC there was “nothing in there [the deal] that is any good for us”.

“I’m beyond horrified and angry right now.”

She said the deal would include a £40m support package, which the Mauritian government could use to help resettlement.

“They [the British government] promised to look out for our best interests – absolute rubbish,” she said.

“It is up to Mauritius to decide if we will get to resettle on the outer islands or not, but they don’t have to if they don’t want to.”

She added: “We want an iron-clad assurance that the Mauritian government will be held accountable and so will the UK government for making sure that we do end up with some sort of a decent life, that reparations are made.”

The Chagos Archipelago was separated from Mauritius in 1965, when Mauritius was still a British colony.

Britain purchased the islands for £3m, but Mauritius has argued it was illegally forced to give away the islands in order to get independence from Britain.

In the late 1960s Britain invited the US to build a military base on Diego Garcia and removed thousands of people from their homes on the island.

An immigration order, issued in 1971, prevented the islanders from returning.

The Chagos islanders themselves – some in Mauritius and the Seychelles, but others living in Crawley in Sussex – do not speak with one voice on the fate of their homeland.

Some are determined to return to live on the isolated islands, some are more focused on their rights and status in the UK, while others argue that the archipelago’s status should not be resolved by outsiders.

Mylene Augustin, a member of the Chagossian community in the UK, said she hoped the deal would not be signed in its current form, saying she felt excluded from the negotiations between the UK and Mauritius over the islands.

“Like Bernadette and Bertrice, my dad was born on Diego Garcia. This is my heritage,” she said. “[The court decision for interim relief] is good. We need to have our self-determination… We need to have our rights.”

In recent years, the UK has come under growing international pressure to return the islands to Mauritius, with both the United Nations’ top court and general assembly siding with Mauritius over sovereignty claims.

In late 2022, the previous Conservative government began negotiations over control of the territory but did not reach an agreement by the time it lost power in the 2024 general election.

The Labour government has argued that ongoing questions about the UK’s right to keep the islands posed a risk to the future of the US-UK military base.

Last week Defence Secretary John Healey said the government had to act “to deal with the jeopardy”.

However, the proposals have been criticised, with opposition politicians raising concern about Mauritius’ relatively close relationship to China and the amount the deal will cost.

Following the court intervention, Conservative shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel said: “Labour’s Chagos surrender deal is bad for our defence and security interests, bad for British taxpayers and bad for British Chagossians.”

She said the legal intervention was a “humiliation for Keir Starmer and [Foreign Secretary] David Lammy”.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said: “Despite the Chagos Islanders winning a High Court injunction to prevent the giving away of the islands, the government will seek to overturn this.

“Why is Starmer so desperate to give away the islands? There is no legal need, it will cost us approximately £52bn, and play into the hands of China. Why?”