Britain shelves handover of Chagos Islands, which host military base, after Trump criticism

LONDON – Britain indicated on April 11 it would shelve plans to return the Chagos Islands – which hosts a strategic US-UK military base – to Mauritius,  after US President Donald Trump strongly criticised the deal.

Britain struck a deal with Mauritius in 2025 to hand back the Indian Ocean islands to its former colony and pay to lease Diego Garcia, the largest island, home to the military base, for a century.

Mr Trump condemned the return agreement as an act of “great stupidity”, and on April 11, British media reported that Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government would drop legislation needed to put the deal into effect.

A former top government official said the government had been effectively forced to abandon the plan as a result of Trump’s opposition.

“When the president of the United States is openly hostile, the government has to rethink, so this agreement... will go into the deep freeze for the time being,” Mr Simon McDonald, previously the most senior civil servant in the Foreign Office, told BBC radio.

Downing Street said in a statement: “We have always said we would only proceed with the deal if it has US support.”

Mr Starmer’s office issued the statement in response to reports that legislation underpinning the deal to return the Indian Ocean archipelago to Mauritius was due to run out of time in pPrliament and that no new Chagos Bill would be brought forward.

The Mauritian foreign minister, Mr Dhananjay Ramful, vowed on April 11 to reclaim the islands, which lie some 2,000km north-east of Mauritius.

“We will spare no effort to seize any diplomatic or legal avenue to complete the decolonisation process in this part of the Indian Ocean,” Mr Ramful said at an Indian Ocean Conference.

“This is a matter of justice.”

The UK had still not received a formal exchange of notes from Washington –- a technical step but a legal necessity for the treaty to be enacted, the PA news agency reported.

Time had consequently run out to pass the legislation before Parliament was dissolved in the coming weeks, it said, quoting a government source as saying the situation was “deeply frustrating”.

Main opposition Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said the agreement should now find its “rightful place – on the ash heap of history”.

“That it took so long is another damning indictment of a Prime Minister who fought to hand over British sovereign territory and pay £35 billion (S$60 billion) to use a crucial military base which was already ours,” she said.

Downing Street said the government would continue to “engage with the US and Mauritius”.

“Diego Garcia is a key strategic military asset for both the UK and the US. Ensuring its long-term operational security is and will continue to be our priority – it is the entire reason for the deal,” the Downing Street spokesperson added.

Mr Trump had endorsed the deal after it was signed but then launched a scathing attack on it in Truth Social comments in January.

“The United Kingdom is currently planning to give away the Island of Diego Garcia... for no reason (whatsoever),” he said.

“There is no doubt that China and Russia have noticed this act of total weakness,” he said, adding that it showed why the US needed to conquer Greenland from ally Denmark.

Diego Garcia was one of two bases which Britain allowed the US to use for what the British government insisted were “defensive operations” in its war against Iran.

Mr Starmer has previously insisted that international legal rulings have put Britain’s ownership of the Chagos in doubt and only a deal with Mauritius would guarantee that the base remains functional.

Britain kept control of the Chagos Islands after Mauritius gained independence in the 1960s.

It evicted thousands of Chagos islanders who have since mounted a series of legal claims for compensation in British courts.

In 2019, the International Court of Justice recommended that Britain hand the archipelago to Mauritius.

The deal would have given Britain a 99-year lease of the base, with the option to extend.

The British government has not said how much the lease would cost but has failed to deny that it would be £90 million (S$154 million) a year. AFP