cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/50537635 > Archived > > For an administration otherwise so uncertain of its motivations, Sir Keir Starmer’s government has proved remarkably determined to get its dud ­Chagos Islands deal over the line. No warning, from any quarter, has deterred the effort. > > Not the opposition of the Chagossian people, evicted by Britain in the 1960s, the majority of whom have made it clear they do not want the islands to fall into Mauritian hands. Not America’s ambassador to the UK, Warren Stephens, who understatedly warned that surrendering the strategically important territory was not the “ideal outcome”. Not the opinion of US senators that No 10’s legal case for secession was “nonsense” fuelled by “a misguided anti-western agenda”. Nor the considered view of the former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, who told this paper that the deal’s potential to ­strengthen Chinese influence in the region meant it was “one of the dumbest geostrategic mistakes”. > > […] > > The case against ceding control of the Chagos Islands is by now well-rehearsed and unanswerable. The islands are home to the US-UK military base on the island of Diego Garcia, nicknamed “the footprint of freedom” for the unique aerial ­access it affords to the Middle East, Indian and Pacific theatres. Having turned this strategic asset over to Mauritius, whose claim to the land is ­dubious, Britain plans to pay the new owners £35 billion over the next 100 years for the privilege of leasing it back. > > That extraordinarily unfavourable arrangement, championed by Sir Keir’s special envoy to the archipelago, Jonathan Powell, was a completely unforced error triggered by a non-binding resolution of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which the UK could, and should, have simply ignored. Labour’s rationalisations were always blatantly spurious. It complied with the ICJ’s edict under the naive impression that Britain would then be able to parade as a paragon of virtue to the global south. > > […] > > From any angle, Sir Keir’s unfathomable desire to surrender the Chagos Islands has been a chaotic and embarrassing debacle, symptomatic of the government’s misplaced goals and strategic ­confusion. However unattractive the prospect of another U-turn, Labour should resile from the project while it still can. Further humiliation is now a certainty either way.