The surrender of Chagos to Mauritius should not surprise anyone. No matter the political hue of those that govern us, Labour or Conservative, they put so-called international interests ahead, and almost invariably to the detriment of the country.
My first direct experience of this was Boris Johnson’s betrayal of Northern Ireland. We voted for the UK to leave the EU, not just Great Britain. But through some extraordinarily peculiar and weak thinking, his administration decided to put a border down the middle of the country rather than where it belongs, on the island of Ireland.
If at this point you are thinking the Good Friday international agreement prohibits a border on the island, you are wrong. You have fallen for the very same nonsense he did. The roots of the sacrifice of Chagos are the same.
I highly recommend you read the short agreement which affects the ceding of this British territory. The only hints of justification are set out in the recitals to the agreement:“Having regard to the decisions of international courts and tribunals, including the International Court of Justice, relating to the Chagos Archipelago.”
Yet again, it is so-called international law which is cited. What the recitals do not say is that the ICJ has no jurisdiction in the UK. Its rulings are merely advisory. It has no democratic legitimacy. Our government is answerable to us, not the ICJ!
The recitals then go on to say: “Recalling the unique circumstances and history of the Chagos Archipelago, and mindful of the need to complete the process of decolonisation of Mauritius.”
Mauritius was completely decolonised and given its independence in 1968. Chagos was never part of Mauritius. There was no decolonisation required as far as Mauritius is concerned.
And bizarrely, the agreement then refers to the past treatment of the Chagossians: “Conscious that past treatment of Chagossians has left a deeply regrettable legacy, and committed to supporting the welfare of all Chagossians.”
Starmer’s Chagos deal smacks of wartime defeat — but the small print hints at something far worse - Ben Habib
Getty Images/Gov.UK
The welfare of the Chagossians? They were never consulted about the handing over of their islands to Mauritius. They are up in arms about it.
The regrettable legacy to which Starmer’s lawyers refer would seem to be being perpetuated. And this other recital takes the biscuit: “Recognising the wrongs of the past.” Which wrongs? Without setting them out, the statement is as meaningless as it is highly emotionally charged. The truth is that Starmer and his colleagues are ashamed of British history and with it the British Isles.
From then on, the agreement reads like the sort of thing a government might sign if defeated in war. The territories of the archipelago are handed over to Mauritius, together with reparations, presumably for all the wrongs to which the recitals refer. There are varying estimates of the net value of the reparations, but no mathematical calculation could yield the figure Starmer put on it of £3.4billion.
The figures to be paid are clearly set out in the document, so the calculation is not nebulous. Even a GCSE mathematician would be able to do it. Using a discount rate of three per cent - a perfectly reasonable figure - the result is over £12.8billion. So Starmer is either mathematically illiterate or lying. To any sane individual, it must seem absurd that we hand over an asset and pay hand over fist for the privilege of doing so.
Starmer was even stupid enough to declare in the agreement that we would forewarn Mauritius of any attacks we might launch from the military base in Diego Garcia. Really? Inform a Chinese ally of intended military action before taking it? Has Starmer truly lost the plot?
Thankfully, the Americans who are based at Diego Garcia will, I am sure, ignore this idiotic undertaking. The Chagos handover starkly reveals how our government could not give a damn about British interests. I have said it before, and I will keep saying it: Starmer is anti-British.
Most Read
