Chagos Islands Deal paused by last-minute legal steps

The government is temporarily forbidden to conclude discussions about the deal of the Chagos Islands by a last-minute order by a judge of the Supreme Court.

At 02:25 BST, Mr. Justice Goose “interim exemption” granted two Chagossian women who had established a case against the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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

In the Agreement, the UK would hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, but the UK and the US would allow to continue to use a military base that has on the Pacific Ocean archipelago for a first period of 99 years.

The British government still has to explain the estimated payments that the British taxpayer would make to Mauritius as part of the deal, but it is expected that he will encounter the billions.

In response to the judicial order, a government spokesperson said: “We do not comment on current legal affairs. This deal is the right thing to protect the British people and our national security.”

Mauritius Attorney General Gavin Glover said: “Since the case will be heard soon, it would not be appropriate for us to make comments.”

The court will hear the case again on Thursday at 10.30 am.

The legal steps were taken by two Chagossian women, Bernadette Dugasse and Bertrice Pompe.

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

“They remain the people with the nearest connection with the islands, but their needs and wishes are ignored.”

In his early morning order, the judge said: “The defendant will not take a convincing or legally binding step to conclude her negotiations on the possible transfer of the British Indian Ocean, also known as the Chagos archipelago, to a foreign government or bind themselves about the specific conditions of such a transfer.”

“The defendant must maintain the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom on the British territory of the Indian Ocean for further order.”

The order states that the judge granted the order “by considering the claimant’s request for interim exemption made of the court hours” and “when reading the defendants’ answer”.

Representatives of the Chagossian community meet Minin star Stephen Doughty of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for discussions about the sovereignty of the territory.

The meeting is expected to include six representatives from three different Chagossian community groups.

“The meeting will be an opportunity to discuss the FCDO Chagossian projects and the new Chagossian contact group,” said an e -mail that was sent to the representatives earlier this week, without giving further details.

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

Great -Britain bought the islands for £ 3 million, but Mauritius claimed that it was illegally forced to give the islands away to get the independence of Great Britain.

In the late sixties, Groot -Britain invited the US to build a military base on Diego Garcia and to remove thousands of people from their houses on the island.

An immigration warrant, published in 1971, prevented the islanders from returning.

The Chagos Islanders themselves – some in Mauritius and the Seychelles, but others who live in Crawley in Sussex – do not speak with one voice on the fate of their home country.

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 claim that the status of the archipelago should not be resolved by outsiders.

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

“Just like Bernadette and Bertrice, my father was born on Diego Garcia. This is my heritage,” she said. “(The court decision for interim exemption) is good. We must have our self-determination … We must have our rights.”

In recent years, the UK has come under the growing international pressure to bring the islands back to Mauritius, with both the top court of the United Nations and the General Assembly to face sovereignty claims at Mauritius.

At the end of 2022, the previous conservative government started negotiations on the control of the territory, but did not reach an agreement by the time it lost power in the general elections of 2024.

After the judicial intervention, Conservative Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel said: “Labor’s Chagos Surrender -deal is bad for our defense and safety interests, bad for British taxpayers and bad for British Chagossians.”

She said that the legal intervention was a “humiliation for Keir Starmer and (Minister of Foreign Affairs) David Lammy”.

UK reform has previously criticized the deal. In March, the party leader Nigel Farage said that the UK would pay “dazzling” amounts to Mauritius and suggested that the islands had to be handed to the US instead.