Starmer pauses Chagos Islands deal after Trump criticism
The passage of Sir Keir Starmer’s Chagos Islands deal through parliament has been “paused” after Donald Trump urged the prime minister to scrap it, a minister has said.
Foreign office minister Hamish Falconer said on Wednesday that while the US had initially expressed its support for the deal, the US president’s intervention earlier this month was “very significant.”
Mr Falconer told MPs that the government was now “pausing” for discussions with the US before bringing the Bill that would ratify the deal back to parliament.
“We have a process going through parliament in relation to the treaty,” he said.
“We will bring that back to parliament at the appropriate time. We are pausing for discussions with our American counterparts.”
Last year, Sir Keir agreed a controversial deal to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, while retaining control of the UK-US military base on Diego Garcia.
The UK has agreed to pay Mauritius at least £120m annually during the 99-year agreement to lease back the site, a total cost in cash terms of at least £13bn.
Earlier this month, Mr Trump hit at at Starmer in his second U-turn on support for the deal to hand over UK sovereignty of the archipelago to Mauritius.
In a post on Truth Social, the US president branded the move a “big mistake” because of concerns over the joint UK-US military base on the island of Diego Garcia.
His withdrawal of support came after he appeared to indicate his support for the deal last year, before criticising the deal in January and again in February.
Mr Falconer was answering questions on Wednesday from MPs including Nigel Farage, who visited the independent archipelagic nation in the Indian Ocean over the weekend.
The Reform UK leader claimed the Maldives is poised to lodge a counter-claim regarding the Chagos Islands with the International Court of Justice “in just a few days”.
Mr Farage said: “I wish to inform the government that we are just a few days away, in my opinion, from the Maldives issuing a counter-claim to the International Court of Justice to say, if anybody has the right to the sovereignty of those islands, it is the Maldives and not Mauritius.
“And I would urge you to pause all of this.”
Mr Farage had boarded a boat carrying food and medicines preparing to make the 24-hour trip to Ile du Coin, which sits 300 miles from the Maldives.
But sources told The Telegraph the plans failed because UK authorities insisted that only trained crew should be on board.
Mr Falconer branded this a “flagrant incident of ignoring travel advice”, while former defence secretary Ben Wallace hit out, saying that no MP can visit the archipelago without pre-clearance and accusing him of performing Trump-style stunts.