Great Britain separates from the Chagos Islands – to the displeasure of the Tories

Expulsion of Chagos residents was a “colonial crime”

The Chagossians did not voluntarily exchange their place in the sun for a small apartment in the English constant rain under the approach path of London Gatwick Airport. Rather, they were driven out of the proverbial paradise by the British 55 years ago. At that time, the former British colony of Mauritius achieved its freedom from Great Britain, but in return the Mauritians had to cede the Chagos archipelago, 2,455 kilometers away, to the outgoing colonial rulers. The agreement was followed by the forced relocation of the entire population of the 58 islands.

This expulsion, condemned by human rights organizations as a “horrific colonial crime,” was carried out at the request of the United States. Britain’s key Cold War partner wanted a military base in the Indian Ocean, and the isolated Chagos Islands, with their key strategic position, were the ideal place to do so. On the main island of Diego Garcia, the Americans worked with the British to build highly secret military facilities that hardly any civilians have seen to this day.

The dispute over the Chagos Islands has been simmering for five decades

On Thursday, the British government announced that the Chagos Archipelago would return to Mauritius. The news that Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Foreign Minister David Lammy had agreed to return the “last British colony in Africa” ​​to the island nation is much more than a news footnote: the territorial dispute over the islands has been simmering since the controversial deal was concluded in the 1960s . For a long time the British were able to ignore the complaints of Mauritius and the expelled Chagossians; After all, the agreement with the Americans on the military use of Diego Garcia only ended in 2016. That was still a long time away back then. In 2010, the British declared the archipelago a marine protected area as a precautionary measure, believing that this would eliminate all of the Chagossians’ claims to resettlement.

With Brexit, Great Britain’s global political influence waned

But finally 2016 came and the British voted to leave the EU. The “will of the people”, often invoked by Brexit supporters, turned the important EU member into an increasingly isolated island economically and in global politics.

Meanwhile, the UN also became interested in the case of the Chagos Islands. In 2019, the International Court of Justice declared that the continued British occupation of the remote Indian Ocean archipelago was illegal. The UK should return the islands to Mauritius “as soon as possible,” said the report, which the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly supported.

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Prime Minister Theresa May, who was in power at the time, was otherwise occupied at the time. She was trying to sell her imperfect Brexit deal to a rebellious parliament. The Foreign Ministry decided that the International Court of Justice’s decision on the Chagos Islands would simply be ignored – after all, it was “just a recommendation.” The same applied to the Brexit referendum; The irony of this fact was apparently lost on the Brexit fanatics.

Many Britons were unaware of the islands’ existence

But the times in which the global community allowed itself to be fobbed off by the former colonial great power are over. The pressure on the kingdom grew; it has been sitting at the negotiating table with Mauritius and the USA since 2022.

It was only the Labor government elected in July with more respect for international law that began to pragmatically solve the Chagos problem. Under Foreign Minister David Lammy, the British said goodbye to the dream islands completely and without any major drama. However, Diego Garcia remains a US military base; the Americans have agreed on a lease directly with Mauritius.

The transfer of the tiny British territory, whose existence many Britons learned of for the first time this week, is not entirely uncontroversial in the kingdom. Those Brexit fanatics who are primarily to blame for Great Britain’s loss of authority on the world stage are now protesting particularly loudly. “Our American allies will be angry about this!” said right-wing populist Nigel Farage. Apparently he had not read the official statement from the White House – it said that the USA had supported the negotiations in recent years and was “pleased with the successful outcome”.

Tories sense betrayal in Gibraltar and the Falklands

The Tory leadership candidates also couldn’t resist the temptation to bash the new Labor government for the Chagos deal with the Union Jack. It was “weak” of Labor to simply give up on the islands like that, said James Cleverly on X. He immediately regretted the tweet. “It was James Cleverley himself who, as foreign minister at the time, initiated the negotiations two years ago,” explained chief negotiator Jonathan Powell to the TV channel Sky News. Since then, Cleverly has had to listen to accusations from his own party colleagues that he gave away British sovereignty in the Indian Ocean and potentially Gibraltar and the Falklands with him.

What is likely to further annoy the migration-obsessed Tories: Starmer and Lammy hope that by handing over the archipelago, they will also close a dangerous illegal immigration route. In recent years, an increasing number of Tamils ​​from Sri Lanka have been heading to the archipelago and applying for asylum on British territory.

And what will become of the displaced Chagossians? They cheer at best cautiously. Many feel betrayed again because their new rulers are now the Mauritians. More than five decades ago, many islanders fled their open racism to the more tolerant Great Britain.

There is still a lot standing in the way of a return to paradise.

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