This past August, Sir Keir Starmer, the milquetoast, malignant buffoon who is Prime Minister of England, finalized what he thought was a bang-up deal to help assuage the chronic case of white guilt he suffers from that he's now inflicted upon the British people.
In May, the sneaky pants had inked a contract to hand over a nearby chain of British-owned islands, the Chagos, to the corrupt, fledgling autocracy of the Mauritius Islands. All this without letting anyone in Parliament or elsewhere know what he was doing. It caused a bit of a stir when the news broke.
Okay - howls of outrage, because, in historical context, the Mauritians have never had anything to do with the Chagos. They weren't occupied or inhabited by Mauritians. In fact, the Chagos are a fair piece away from Mauritius in distance, so the 'return and reparations' angle has always been balderdash woke hokum.
This is insane. It's self harm. Mauritius is 2000km from the Chagos islands. They have almost zero historical or cultural connection to the islands. Their claim revolves around the fact that the UK made the clerical decision to govern the Chagos from Mauritius, that is it. The Chagos were uninhabited when it was discovered. The 1200 (or so), slave and plantation worker descendants, that were forcibly removed 50 years ago, have a much better claim than Mauritius. The UK should declare formerly that the islands are British and an integral part of the UKs overseas territories. We should distribute land and homes on the islands to the displaced people. While the base remains, and we fulfill our commitment to the US, there are plenty of islands that can be developed. We should be talking to the Chagos people, not Mauritius.
No matter.
Oh, yummy, said the Mauritians. Add some more zeros to that check, and we'll think about it.
So Starmer did, and signed away.
He kind of lied to Parliament and the British people about how many zeroes were involved.
We’ve revealed Labour’s deal to surrender the Chagos islands will cost £35 billion.
— Kemi Badenoch (@KemiBadenoch) August 11, 2025
Starmer betrayed public trust by misrepresenting the real cost, which will fund tax cuts in Mauritius.
Now tax rises are coming to pay for this nonsense. When Labour negotiates Britain loses. pic.twitter.com/wZ6pKlMsus
The United States is involved in this reparations evolution, at least, strategically because the Chagos Island chain includes one upon which resides our Indian Ocean 'carrier at sea' known as Diego Garcia - you may have heard of it. We rent space on that from the Brits.
As of my last post this past August, I had been operating under the assumption that, no matter how badly it stunk and whatever sort of ruinous snek deal Starmer had struck to sell out to the Mauritians, it was a done deal. As for pushback from the Trump administration over it, there hadn't really been any, which seemed odd. Whereas there had been a plethora of dire warnings and alarms from numerous congressional committees, military and strategic think tanks, and the like. Particularly concerning was the close relationship Mauritius already has with the Chinese on those islands (I wrote about that here).
It turns out there were still surprises to come, as testimony and debate continued - which I did not know was happening - on the floor of Parliament. One of which was that, in late November, Labour's claim that the Chagos had never had a resident population or were ever self-governing has been disproven, undercutting a significant part of the #feelingz argument for the deal.
...Documentary evidence confirms that a settled Chagossian population existed on the islands for more than a century before their deportation. Church registers and colonial era records show births, marriages, and burials occurring across generations on Peros Banhos, Salomon, and Diego Garcia. Families lived in established villages with homes, chapels, gardens, and community buildings.
The UK courts, the United Nations Human Rights bodies, and academic researchers have all recognised the Chagossians as a distinct, continuous, and permanent people. The islanders were not transient labourers as earlier British memos claimed, but a Creole speaking population with a cultural identity and family lines rooted in the archipelago.
For Baroness Chapman to state that the islands had “no permanent population” is, historians say, demonstrably false.
New evidence shows the Chagos Islands had elected leaders and were self-governing prior to being deported
— Robert Midgley (@RobertMidgley07) November 25, 2025
Baroness Chapman claimed the islands had ‘never been self-governing’ or a had a permanent population
The government has been caught red-handed lying pic.twitter.com/zMolZ8zubG
The other happened last night, when the House of Lords voted NAY to the deal for the fourth time.
The “pay off” of the Chagos Islands has been defeated for the 4th time in the Lords. This time they have added a referendum clause, for the Chagossians themselves to decide.
— Bernie (@Artemisfornow) January 5, 2026
No one knows wtf the government is doing. pic.twitter.com/cSgWPzR4tk
And what the Lords did on this go-round of voting was add that a referendum of Chagossians for their own self-determination must be held before any deal with Mauritius could go forward.
...Patriotic peers have defeated the government four separate times in crucial votes on the Chagos Islands surrender deal tonight. Members of the Lords managed to back major amendments to Sir Keir Starmer’s hated sell-off, including a new provision for a referendum of Chagossians to be held.
A cross-party coalition of the Conservatives, Lib Dems, cross-benchers and others voted on the amendment, which would mean ratification of the treaty can’t go ahead until local islanders have their say. The Government has repeatedly failed to listen to the opposition by Chagossians, despite major human rights concerns about how they might be treated by Mauritius when they take control of the archipelago. Labour peers, meanwhile, voted to ignore the views of the Chagossians once again, with 121 voting down the referendum amendment.
This requirement has to absolutely twist Labour's knickers because they have done everything in their power to disenfranchise and disappear the native Chagossians as a people in order to swing this abomination of a deal.
And that's not all the Lords did. They also inserted language that demands a full accounting, not only of the numbers, but of the #Mathz Starmer's Labour toadies used to get those wonky numbers no one else can quite match when they work the problem. You know how progressives hate being forced to show their work.
...Changes sought by the House of Lords to a draft law enabling the contentious transfer set the stage for a parliamentary tussle over the Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill, known as "ping-pong", when legislation is batted between the Commons and Lords until agreement is reached.
The Bill, which is needed to implement the treaty, has already been approved by MPs but has faced a bruising ride in the House of Lords.
The upper chamber backed by 194 votes to 130, majority 64, a Tory measure which would force the Government to publish the total cost of the payments to be made to Mauritius, including the full methodology used in the calculation.
Current events are also forcing Labour to listen to the voices that have been incensed at the thought of losing access to Diego Garcia at any time during or after the terms of the 99-year lease, as it currently stands.
...Independent crossbencher Lord Houghton of Richmond, who served as chief of the defence staff from 2013-16, said: "Currently, the Bill makes no provision for the circumstances under which the requirement to pay an annual fee for the use of the Diego Garcia base is revisited in the event of the base becoming unusable for military purposes."
In a veiled reference to US President Donald Trump's intervention in Venezuela, Lord Houghton said: "Many in the chamber may think my concerns are drawn from the world of fantasy or nightmare, but do the last 72 hours not give serious cause for concern regarding our ability to predict with certainty the next two years of geopolitics, let alone the next 100?
"This treaty needs to cater far better for what the future might hold."
There are now people urging President Trump to, at last, step in and torpedo the entire scheme. The consequences of the Chinese having unfettered access in close proximity would be unthinkable.
Diego Garcia has been central to our projection of power in the region for so long.
President Trump’s courageous and bold decision to capture Venezuelan tyrant Nicolás Maduro was a demonstration of tremendous US leadership on the world stage. It was also a huge blow and humiliation for Communist China, a close partner of the Maduro regime. The raid on Caracas put Beijing firmly on the back foot. But thousands of miles away in the Indian Ocean, China is about to receive a huge strategic win courtesy of the British Government, unless it can be stopped.
The incredibly foolish actions of Prime Minister Keir Starmer threaten to weaken the security of the United States and undermine a transatlantic special relationship that has been in place for over 80 years. This is at a time when both of our great nations are confronting a new cold war orchestrated by the Chinese Communist Party and egged on by its erstwhile supporters – Russia, Iran and North Korea.
The staggeringly reckless decision by Starmer’s Labour Government to hand over the British Indian Ocean Territory to Chinese ally Mauritius following an earlier advisory ruling by the UN International Court of Justice in The Hague is one of the most dangerous acts of self-harm by the United Kingdom in its post-war history.
...There now remains a narrow window of time for the United States to raise major concerns over the deal and to help send it to the bottom of the Indian Ocean. American interests in the Indo-Pacific will be directly impacted if the Chagos deal moves forward.
Case in point, the recent successful strikes on Iran’s nuclear weapons programme were supported by operations conducted from Diego Garcia, and the base acts as a significant deterrence against adventurism by regimes like Iran, Russia and China across the Indian Ocean.
The looming handover of the Chagos Islands is a massive coup for Communist China, which has long coveted a foothold in the region. There can be no doubt that Beijing will use this golden opportunity to advance its own interests at America’s and the UK’s expense.
If the deal is ratified and implemented, Mauritius will have full sovereignty over the Islands, and could offer China its own base on Chagos in close proximity to Diego Garcia, with endless opportunities for spying on US and British military activities.
Mauritius could also sign a defence agreement with Beijing granting China access to the waters around the Chagos Islands, making the base at Diego Garcia practically impossible to operate for the United States.
There is one worse possibility if the Chagos chain is handed over to Mauritius.
...There is also the very real possibility that Mauritius could renege on the agreement with Britain in the coming years, and agree to sell the Islands at a higher price to China, forcing the US/UK base to close altogether.
Thank God the House of Lords has stalled this long enough that the Trump administration could have a chance to come in swinging that big stick.
There should be ample reason to do so, and expediently...
Major international developments are emerging after Labour’s Chagos defeat:
— Robert Midgley (@RobertMidgley07) January 6, 2026
• Mauritius has been implicated in illicit financial dealings linked to Venezuela's Maduro
• Whistleblower documents indicate China’s strategic interest beyond the 99-year lease period
• The Chagos… pic.twitter.com/YGNEtzK3dP
• The Chagos Treaty undermines the Pelindaba Treaty, making AUKUS operations at Diego Garcia unlawful
The US must urgently reassess this avoidable strategic failure
...although I'm sure our administration would prefer the Brits to sink it all by themselves.
If there were ever a time to put an American foot down, this would be the moment to have it laced up and ready to stomp.
Please help Ed, David, John, and me continue revealing Democrats' plans to lead America down a dangerous path.
Please help us continue to expose Democrats, progressives, and the media's left-wing bias by reading news you can trust. Join Hot Air VIP and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your membership!
Join the conversation as a VIP Member