Future Postcards

After a gruelling and now hard won fight, tonight the Chagos surrender deal seems to have finally been thrown into the dustbin of history. It was a shameful deal, built on fundamentally flawed principles. No British Government has the moral right to barter away the sovereignty of British territory to a foreign power without the full, meaningful consent of its people. The Chagossians have been woefully ignored for decades and decades - whether that was back in the 1960s when Labour dispossessed them from their ancestral homeland, or under the Conservatives who refused to allow resettlement or self-determination to the Chagossian people, and Labour today, surrendering their islands to Mauritius, while the British taxpayer foots an eye-watering bill for the privilege. For over twenty years, I have campaigned on this issue, and it has been astonishing - truly astonishing - to watch Labour ministers attempt to defend the indefensible. Handing over sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, only to lease back a vital strategic asset at enormous cost, was never a sensible or sustainable course of action and to argue that they were doing so for the sake of our national security would be laughable if it wasn’t outright dangerous. It was a diplomatic absurdity and a betrayal of our national interest. That this proposal has now unravelled only reinforces how ill-conceived it was from the outset. The reported costs, running into the billions, represent a staggering burden on the British taxpayer for no benefit, while simultaneously placing the future of the critically important base at Diego Garcia in jeopardy. I hope this shocking episode serves as a wake-up call that this Government cannot be trusted with our national security. The principle must now be restated that British sovereignty over the Chagos Islands, or any of other British Overseas Territories, are not for sale and not up for negotiation. Self-determination must be upheld and Britain must stand firm in defence of our territories and the rights of their inhabitants.