It is concerning to hear media reports saying new Prime Minister Andy Burnham is intending to press on with Keir Starmer’s disgraceful deal to give the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. This shoddy deal is wrong on so many levels, and the whole issue has greater local significance for us in Crawley, with our town being home to the world’s largest Chagossian population outside of Mauritius.
The forced removal of the Chagossian people from their homeland in the 1960s is a historical injustice, going against our normal British principle of having local population consent for any major changes in our overseas territories. It is simply appalling to repeat that lack of consent by giving no say whatsoever to Chaggosian people today, on the future of their historic homeland, but that’s exactly what’s happening with Labour’s deal, as well as paying billions of pounds to Mauritius from our defence budget, when there is an urgent need to spend more on defence.
The UK Government has always rightly applied the principle of consent for the people of the Falkland Islands and have been forced to publicly state that last week, following more stupid ramblings from the Trump Whitehouse, suggesting the US could negatively change its position on the Falklands, and then the even more ridiculous ramblings of the Argentine President Javier Milei, claiming Argentine sovereignty of the Falklands and declaring sanctions against oil companies working around the islands.
The Argentine declaration is a hostile act, which follows hostile behaviour from Mauritius. These countries are not our friends and the fact such actions meet no robust response from the UK Government only seeks to encourage them to go further. Indeed, I believe Argentina has been emboldened by Mauritius. But it’s even worse than that, as other bigger and more dangerous actors are taking note of our weakness.
Most notably, Russia continues to push boundaries at levels just below direct military confrontation to test our resolve. It’s time for Britain to be much more assertive on the global stage, starting with placing economic sanctions against Mauritius and Argentina. Bullies and aggressors only ever respect strength.
