High court judge blocks UK from concluding Chagos Islands deal
A high court judge has blocked the UK government from concluding its deal to hand over the Chagos Islands with an injunction granted in the early hours of Thursday.
The agreement to hand sovereignty over the Chagos islands to Mauritius was due to be given the green light by ministers on Thursday.
Downing Street lifted its objection to announcing the deal over the prospect of a political backlash, according to reports, with the prime minister due to attend a virtual event with the Mauritian government.
But in the injunction granted at 2.25am on Thursday, brought against the Foreign Office, Mr Justice Goose granted 'interim relief' to Bertrice Pompe.
Pompe, who was born on Diego Garcia, the largest island in the Chagos archipelago, has taken legal action against the agreement.
Goose said in his order: 'The defendant shall take no conclusive or legally binding step to conclude its negotiations concerning the possible transfer of the British Indian Ocean Territory, also known as the Chagos Archipelago, to a foreign government or bind itself as to the particular terms of any such transfer.'
A hearing is expected to take place on Thursday morning at 10:30am.
Under the agreement, Britain will cede control over the islands to Mauritius but lease Diego Garcia for 99 years to continue operating a joint US-UK military base there. Ministers have refused to disclose the cost of the lease but it is has been reported to be about £90m a year.
A government spokesperson said: 'We do not comment on ongoing legal cases. This deal is the right thing to protect the British people and our national security.'
More details soon …
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
As Labour risks a civil libertires backlash by hinting ID cards are in the pipeline, the party's former Home Secretery argues... All our digital fingerprints are everywhere, so giving a national identity card to every citizen is a no-brainer
Much ink has been spilt over the Labour Government's shelving of the Rwanda deportation plan. This hopelessly impractical and eye wateringly expensive project was to deter the small boat migrants from making the perilous crossing of the Channel, and after much toing and froing between the courts and Parliament, the first deportation flights were scheduled for July 24 last year. However, the General Election intervened and at his first press conference as Prime Minister Keir Starmer witheringly confirmed that the 'gimmick' scheme was 'dead and buried'. Since then – with some 1,200 migrants making it to English shores in one day alone last week – the numbers of people entering the country illegally have ticked up and up. With each day's figures, the supporters of the Tory's Rwanda plan cry: 'I told you so.'
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
20 years on from the febrile aftermath of London's 7/7 bombings, a heart-stopping minute by minute account of the day Scotland Yard's first ever shoot-to-kill operation ended in the... CATASTROPHIC death of an innocent man
Twenty years ago, London was a city under attack, living on its nerves. Out of the blue that summer of 2005, the capital's transport system was hit by a murderous wave of al-Qaeda bombers, with devastating results. Ordinary folk going about their everyday lives died in the onslaught. Hundreds were mutilated. London knew all about terrorist bombs from years of enduring attacks by various Irish factions. But here was something new to these shores and infinitely more terrifying – the suicide bomber hell-bent on martyrdom. To Commissioner of Police Sir Ian Blair it was a door opening into a new kind of terrorism. 'The IRA and the Loyalists never did anything the size of this. This was a step change.'
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Kemi Badenoch says office managers should be able to ban women from wearing face coverings
Office managers should be able to ban employees from wearing burkas, Kemi Badenoch has said. The Tory leader hit out at the Islamic traditional dress and said she had 'strong views about face coverings' and would not allow people into her constituency surgeries if they wore them. Her remarks came after Reform's chairman Zia Yusuf quit following a row over the subject after his colleague MP Sarah Pochin urged the Prime Minister to ban the burka 'in the interests of public safety'- before rejoining on Saturday night. Mrs Badenoch said Britain could enforce a ban on burkas but what needs to be addressed are pressing issues around integration. She added that sharia courts and first-cousin marriage are an 'insidious' barrier to integration. She said: 'If you were to ask me where you start with integration – sharia courts, all of this nonsense sectarianism, things like first cousin marriage – there's a whole heap of stuff that is far more insidious and that breeds more problems. 'My view is that people should be allowed to wear whatever they want, not what their husband is asking them to wear or what their community says that they should wear.' She added: 'If you come into my constituency surgery, you have to remove your face covering, whether it's a burka or a balaclava. 'I'm not talking to people who are not going to show me their face, and I also believe that other people should have that control. 'Organisations should be able to decide what their staff wear; it shouldn't be something that people should be able to override.' France is just one of a number of countries that have already banned the burka. But Mrs Badenoch said: 'France has a ban and they have worse problems than we do in this country on integration. So banning the burka clearly is not the thing that's going to fix things.' If employers started to tell staff to remove any religious clothing, they could face legal issues under equality and human rights laws on the grounds they were being discriminating. An organisation would have to demonstrate its ban was for a legitimate reason, such as ensuring health and safety or enabling effective communication.
