I’ve twice used this column previously to sound-off about the Government’s disastrous policy of giving away the British Indian Ocean Territories to Mauritius, only to spend £ billions to lease them back so that the principal Island, Diego Garcia, can continue to host a US airbase which vital to our security.
They are ashamed of our history and they hate Britain
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Chagossian Rights
The Government’s Bill to enact its Treaty with Mauritius is currently in the Lords, having already secured its passage unamended in the Commons.
Donald Trump has blown both hot and cold about the arrangement. I am still hopeful that he will scotch the whole endeavour. Nevertheless, the way the Government has gone about the process, by first forcing a Bill through Parliament will, if it persists, compromise Parliamentary sovereignty and waste parliamentary time.
In 1966 the Labour government made an agreement with the USA regarding Diego Garcia and registered that agreement with the United Nations as an international treaty (UN 8737). Article 1 of that treaty provides that Diego Garcia and the rest of the archipelago “shall remain under UK sovereignty”. A clear and binding undertaking that the UK will maintain its sovereignty so that the USA can continue to enjoy the rights granted to it in the agreement, namely operating the airbase.
Article 11 of the treaty states that this arrangement will last until 2036.
The UK has however, already signed a treaty with Mauritius to transfer our sovereignty over Diego Garcia and the Archipelago over to Mauritius.
To do so lawfully, it must first secure an agreement with USA to amend Article 1 of the 1966 treaty, which will require the agreement of President Trump. It is unclear as to whether such agreement will now be had. I certainly hope it won’t be.
The logical way to have proceeded would have been first to have secured agreement from the USA to amend the 1966 treaty, and only then then to proceed to reach an agreement with Mauritius. What the Government is now doing is to try and force through Parliament a Bill that renounces UK sovereignty over the territories without actually transferring it to Mauritius (because that still requires USA agreement, which has yet to be secured). In effect the sovereignty of the British Indian Ocean Territories is being placed into limbo.
Even worse, this is an affront to Parliament’s own sovereignty because we will have passed into law an Act of Parliament, which will require the consent of a foreign head of state, President Trump, before it can take effect.
Even if the Government gets its way (and, fingers crossed, it won’t), it couldn’t have made a greater hash of it.