Thanks to a last-minute maneuver in the House of Lords, the fate of Diego Garcia and Keir Starmer's infamous Chagos Island deal is still hanging in the balance.
Holy smokes. This is worse than a horror flick, waiting for the end. But at least it's a good guy crashing through a remote cabin's picture window instead of a chainsaw-wielding monster, right when you think it's over and done with.
The deal Starmer was insisting not 24 hours ago was signed and going through, come hell, high water, or the wrath of Donald Trump, was so bad, it's being termed a surrender. Many, many prominent people are sincerely questioning whether the Prime Minister is, in fact, an agent of the Chinese communists, as malleable as he has been to the interests of that country, and acting in seeming determined opposition to the security of his own.
The Chagos “deal” contains the sort of punitive terms one might expect to be imposed upon the losing side in an instrument of surrender - yet the government has agreed to them voluntarily and in the absence of any credible threat to British sovereignty.https://t.co/smLWHDPMu5
— Bruges Group 🇬🇧 (@BrugesGroup) January 21, 2026
Donald Trump threw an Uncle Sam-sized monkey wrench into the years-long negotiations two days ago with a Truth Social post excoriating Starmer for the utter stupidity of the proposal. It also exposed the Labour government for having led the Americans astray regarding the specific details of the treaty the British were signing with the Chinese-friendly government of Mauritius.
There had been questions about why the Trump administration had been so silent concerning the Chagos handover, despite the obvious danger to arguably our most strategic outpost, and that post answered one of the concerns. The other was, why then? What suddenly woke them up?
And it turns out it was a conversation on British TV with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. Nigel Farage pinned him on the issue and said, 'HOW HAS TRUMP LET THIS STAND?' Johnson did look as if he was a little confused, as if he hadn't been aware that there was an issue.
HELLO
It began, as many talking points tend to in Donald Trump’s administration, under the beaming lights of a television studio.
On his evening GB News show on Monday, Nigel Farage leaned across the desk to ask Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson why the US was not up in arms over Sir Keir Starmer’s plan to give away the Chagos Islands.
“I don’t know that the president has spoken directly to the issue or as forcefully enough to your point, but I would assume he shares the same concern as you and I do about that,” Mr Johnson replied.
In the hours that followed, the speaker is understood to have spoken to his boss on the phone.
[Diego Garcia discussion starts at 14:40 in]
Once Johnson talked to Trump - and I can only assume he quizzed Farage thoroughly after the interview on the entire 'deal' - it became an issue fast, and Trump unloaded.
That put a momentary burp in the ratification proceedings, but Starmer was determined to bull ahead, even though myriad experts, including some in his own government, were saying that without the Americans buying off on it, it was dead in the water.
In spite of that, Labour took amendments that the House of Lords had sent back to them at the beginning of the month (in yet another defeat for Starmer), added their own, tweaked some others, and sent them back up to the Lords for the final blessing.
Chagossians were pissed.
“It’s appalling. I’m angry about it.”
— James Melville 🚜 (@JamesMelville) January 21, 2026
Misley Mandarin, the Chagos Island’s Interim First Minister calls out the Labour government over its plan to transfer sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. pic.twitter.com/1BszeUttYH
Conservatives in Britain were pissed. Brits were pissed.
Everyone was at their wits' end waiting for Trump to move and crush the treaty at the last second.
It turns out the legislation never made it back to the House of Lords. A pesky piece of paperwork had been kind of overlooked by the Starmer government in the rush to ram this treaty through.
...On Friday morning the Conservatives tabled a motion in the House of Lords calling for the new Chagos deal’s ratification to be delayed to allow talks on the 1966 treaty to conclude, with the aim of avoiding a breach of international law.
Legislation underpinning the agreement was expected to return to the Lords on Monday for further scrutiny.
But The Telegraph can reveal that it will no longer be returning to the upper chamber as planned.
Ms Badenoch said the deal could “not progress while this issue remains unsolved”.
She said: “Throughout the Chagos debates, Keir Starmer has tried to hide behind the cover of international law, now the Conservatives are exposing that his shameful surrender may be illegal.”
It turns out that a treaty was signed in 1966 between the US and the UK, asserting continued United Kingdom sovereignty over the islands in order to assure both nations access to Diego Garcia for defense purposes.
It appears the United States is not amenable to reworking the terms of that treaty.
...Under the terms of Sir Keir’s deal, the UK would hand over the archipelago to Mauritius and lease back the Diego Garcia military base, a facility built there in the 1970s that has been used by UK and US forces.
The Tories had warned this agreement would break a 1966 treaty between the UK and the US, that asserts Britain’s sovereignty over the islands and is meant to ensure they remain available to both sides for defence purposes.
Ministers said in late December that the two nations were engaging in talks about updating this treaty in light of the new Chagos deal, but the talks have not been completed.
Asked last night if Mr Trump would be willing to tear up the 1966 treaty and allow the transfer of Chagos to go ahead, the US state department referred back to the president’s criticism on Tuesday when he said: “The UK giving away extremely important land is an act of GREAT STUPIDITY.”
This is absolutely hilarious.
Oops. How in God's name could this have been missed? It's absolutely fundamental. The government needed not just US blessing for the Chagos deal, but they needed to secure an amendment to the 1966 UK/US treaty - which apparently has not happened. Clusterfuck or what? https://t.co/6xMKNGfNAp
— JaimeJessop (@Janine511484078) January 23, 2026
Starmer's had to pull the bill.
Sir Keir Starmer has been forced to pull his Chagos Islands bill in the wake of a US backlash over the deal.
The legislation was expected to be debated in the House of Lords on Monday, but was delayed on Friday night after the Conservatives warned it could violate a 60-year-old treaty with the US that enshrines British sovereignty over the archipelago.
Where does Starmer go from here, when everyone but Labour had a hand in handing him his butt on this?
...The truth lies somewhere in between. A core of Conservative peers have manfully deployed their legislative skills in recent weeks but, as Hannan notes, “it is now up to Trump and the people around him.” Nigel Farage is entitled to credit for his work speaking to the top members of the Trump administration. But Kemi Badenoch has done her part too, lobbying Speaker Mike Johnson on his visit to London at the beginning of this week. Tonight, one party is focusing on the public parliamentary battle; another on private personal connections. The Chagos backlash is a microcosm of the battle on the right: the Tories, with their expertise and institutional strength, versus Reform with the Farage factor and their ideological allies.
As for Labour, they are now left with an almighty mess on their hands. Do they proceed with a deal for which there is virtually no domestic political appetite? Or would they rather kick it into the long grass, reasoning that it would be better to preserve political capital with the Americans for the looming battles over Ukraine? Both senior officials and ministers admit to being somewhat baffled as to why so much capital is being expended on Chagos. Starmer chose to make this a foreign policy priority in his first 100 days. Should he wish to wisely now seek an off ramp, this delay offers the perfect chance to do so.
Is he man enough to take the 'L'?
I am still nervous enough to watch the picture window - it seems like it just got replaced, and the movie might be over.
Oh, and I do like this ending so much better.
I hope they stick the landing.
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