Starmer's Chagos deal reported to UN human rights chiefs
Campaigners have asked the UN's human rights committee in Geneva to examine the deal, under which the UK will give up the Chagos Islands to Mauritius and rent back a military base there.
If successful, the request could result in a UN ruling in direct contradiction to the body's International Court of Justice, which said in 2019 that the UK should hand over the islands to Mauritius.
Bernadette Dugasse and Bertrice Pompe, who are British citizens but native to the islands, launched an eleventh-hour bid to stop the deal last month, resulting in a dramatic injunction from the High Court in the middle of the night.
But their legal challenge was rejected the next day, and the deal went ahead, including a commitment for the UK to pay Mauritius up to £30 billion over the next 99 years.
Ms Dugasse and Ms Pompe are now taking their fight to the UN by writing to the committee asking for an advisory opinion that the UK should not sign the deal over human rights concerns.
They allege the deal breaches five articles of the UN's international covenant on civil and political rights, including the right to self-determination, freedom of movement and right to return, and minority rights.
The deal agreed by Sir Keir has been opposed by MPs from the Conservative and Reform parties, and Tory peers have since launched a campaign to block the deal from the House of Lords.
But the Government insists that the deal is vital for national security and will allow the military base on the archipelago's biggest island, Diego Garcia, to continue to operate legally.
It follows years of negotiations between Britain and Mauritius, which claims it should have been given sovereignty over the islands when it was given independence from the UK in 1968.
The population of the islands, between 1,400 and 1,700 people, was removed in the late 60s and early 70s to make way for the military base.
The displaced Chagossians claim that they were not consulted before the Starmer deal was signed, and complain that under the terms agreed between the UK and Mauritius, they will not be allowed to return to Diego Garcia.
Ms Pompe said: 'The fight is not over. There is nothing in that treaty for Chagossians and we will fight.'
The UN does not have the power to block the deal, but the committee could issue an advisory opinion that would inform Downing Street it could be in breach of international human rights obligations if it proceeds.
The campaigners told the committee in a letter, seen by The Telegraph, that the deal 'would amount to a definitive and irreversible endorsement of a continuing violation originally initiated by the colonial power'.
It goes on: 'By excluding the Chagossian people from the process and de facto accepting their permanent displacement, the agreement entrenches the denial of their right to return and the effective exercise of their cultural, spiritual rights.'
Toby Noskwith, who coordinated last month's legal action, said: 'I pity the poor souls in the No10 press office who are being ordered to justify Keir Starmer's betrayal of the Chagossian people.
'We're looking forward to the explanation of why the UN human rights committee doesn't matter. Not pausing the Chagos deal until the Committee rules is indefensible.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
8 minutes ago
- The Independent
How many asylum seekers are in UK hotels and why are they being housed there?
The subject of asylum seekers being housed in hotels has come into sharp focus after a High Court ruling. On Tuesday, Epping Forest District Council was granted a temporary injunction blocking asylum seekers from being housed at the Bell Hotel in the Essex town. Here, the PA news agency takes a look at the latest overall data. – How many asylum seekers are in hotels across the UK? The most recent Home Office data showed there were 32,345 asylum seekers being housed temporarily in UK hotels at the end of March. This was down 15% from the end of December, when the total was 38,079. New figures – published among the usual quarterly immigration data release – are expected on Thursday, showing numbers in hotels at the end of June. Figures for hotels published by the Home Office date back to December 2022 and showed numbers hit a peak at the end of September 2023 when there were 56,042 asylum seekers in hotels. – How many hotels are in use for asylum seekers? It is thought there were more than 400 asylum hotels open in summer 2023. Labour said this has since been reduced to fewer than 210. – Why are asylum seekers being housed in hotels? Asylum seekers and their families can be housed in temporary accommodation, known as contingency accommodation, if they are awaiting assessment of their claim or have had a claim approved and there is not enough longer-term accommodation available. The Home Office provides accommodation to asylum seekers who have no other way of supporting themselves on a 'no choice' basis, so they cannot choose where they live. When there is not enough housing, the Home Office can move people to accommodation such as hotels and large sites, like former military bases. In May, the National Audit Office said those temporarily living in hotels accounted for 35% of all people in asylum accommodation. – Is this likely to be a permanent arrangement? Labour has pledged to end the 'costly use of hotels to house asylum seekers in this Parliament' – which would be 2029, if not earlier. Campaigners and charities have long argued that hotels are not suitable environments to house asylum seekers. The Refugee Council said they 'cost the taxpayer billions, trap people in limbo and are flashpoints in communities' and urged the Government to 'partner with local councils to provide safe, cost-effective accommodation within communities'. – What is the Government saying since the legal ruling? Ministers are 'looking at a range of different contingency options' following Tuesday's ruling, according to security minister Dan Jarvis In the immediate aftermath of the judgment, border security minister Dame Angela Eagle repeated criticism of the previous Conservative government, saying Labour had 'inherited a broken asylum system'. She said the Government would 'continue working with local authorities and communities to address legitimate concerns' around asylum hotels. – What options does the Home Office have now? Last month, amid protests outside the Bell Hotel and more migrants crossing the Channel, an extra 400 spaces were being prepared to house male asylum seekers at RAF Wethersfield in Essex. The former military site, which has a usual capacity of 800 beds, is expected to house more adult men on a short-term basis. The Labour Government scrapped the large site of the Bibby Stockholm barge in Portland, Dorset, earlier this year, while Napier Barracks in Folkestone, Kent, is also due to end housing asylum seekers and be returned to the Ministry of Defence in September. – Why were there protests outside the Bell Hotel? The hotel in Epping has been at the centre of a series of protests in recent weeks after an asylum seeker who was staying there was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl – something he has denied and he is due to stand trial later in August. After the High Court's ruling, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage wrote in the Telegraph calling for Epping protests to inspire further action wherever there are concerns about the 'threat posed by young undocumented males' living in hotels. But on Tuesday more than 100 women's organisations wrote to ministers warning that vital conversations about violence against women and girls are being 'hijacked by an anti-migrant agenda' that fuels divisions and harms survivors. The joint statement, including from Rape Crisis England & Wales and Refuge, said: 'We have been alarmed in recent weeks by an increase in unfounded claims made by people in power, and repeated in the media, that hold particular groups as primarily responsible for sexual violence. 'This not only undermines genuine concerns about women's safety, but also reinforces the damaging myth that the greatest risk of gender-based violence comes from strangers.'
Daily Mail
8 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
UK's military chief in Pentagon talks after Donald Trump pledges a NATO-style security guarantee for Ukraine - but British peacekeeping troops 'won't be sent to the frontline'
The UK's top military chief is set to hold meetings in Washington DC today following Donald Trump 's promise of security guarantees for Ukraine. Sir Tony Radakin, the chief of the defence staff, is expected to attend talks at the Pentagon to thrash out how Ukraine would be defended from future attack in the event of a peace deal with Russia. It follows crunch talks at the White House on Monday between the US President and European leaders, including Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky. After the emergency summit in the Oval Office - held in the wake of Mr Trump's talks with Russia's Vladimir Putin in Alaska last week - Sir Keir said there had been a 'common understanding' about a NATO-style security guarantee for Ukraine. The PM added this was an 'Article 5-like guarantee', which could mirror the 'collective defence' clause of the NATO treaty that states that an attack against one NATO ally is considered an attack against all NATO allies. Sir Keir has pledged to put British troops on the ground in Ukraine as part of efforts by the so-called 'coalition of the willing' of Ukrainian allies to help ensure a potential peace agreement with Russia holds. But, during the Pentagon talks on Wednesday between military chiefs from the coalition of the willing and their American counterparts, Sir Tony is expected to state that UK peacekeeping troops would not be on the frontline with Russia. US President Donald Trump told Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday that America would help guarantee Ukraine's security in a deal with Russia A British official told The Guardian: 'Wednesday is a really important moment. 'Nothing happens in Washington without the President giving the green light, so Trump giving his support to security guarantees on Monday kickstarted a lot of activity.' Another said Sir Tony would echo pledges made by Defence Secretary John Healey, who recently said Britain was willing to deploy troops to Ukraine 'to secure the safe skies, safe seas and to build the strength of the Ukrainian forces'. They added that ministers envisaged this as meaning logistical and training support rather than sending battalions of frontline troops who could end up in combat. Security minister Dan Jarvis this morning said the flurry of diplomatic talks in recent days had 'brought the prospect of peace much closer' in Ukraine. Speaking on Times Radio, he said: 'We've always strongly supported Ukraine's integration, both in terms of their potential desire to be members of the European Union and membership of NATO. 'We don't think that any limitation should be placed on Ukraine's armed forces or on its co-operation with third countries, and Russia certainly shouldn't be able to have a veto against Ukraine's pathway to the European Union or NATO.' Mr Jarvis added: 'I think it is important to make the point that very significant progress has been made. 'I think the Alaska summit and the talks in Washington over the previous days have brought the prospect of peace much closer than they had been previously.' But, despite the growing hopes that the three year-long conflict in Ukraine could soon be brought to an end, former Russian prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov warned that Mr Putin is 'absolutely not' ready for peace. He told Times Radio that the Russian leader was 'absolutely not' serious about striking a peace deal, despite Mr Trump's suggestion trilateral meeting - potentially in Budapest - between himself, Mr Putin and Mr Zelensky. 'He doesn't want to have the high-level meeting. He doesn't want to meet to sit down with Zelensky,' Mr Kasyanov, a leading Putin critic, said. 'It will be some of a humiliating event for him. That's why he will be avoiding it. You're correct that the ball is on Putin's court, but he will continue dragging out time, continue his offensive operation, believing that he will win the war of attrition. 'He simply managed to avoid imposing just tough sanctions as a result of Alaska meeting.'
Telegraph
9 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Starmer has now reached Sunak-levels of unpopularity: how long can he last?
Loyalty, it used to be said, was the Conservative Party's secret weapon. It was loyalty to the leader, as well as the party, that got them through a series of crises and scandals that less disciplined parties could not withstand. Even when that loyalty was fractured in an unprecedented and dramatic fashion – in the removal of Mrs Thatcher as leader in 1990 – the party quickly united behind the new leadership and pulled off an unlikely general election triumph in 1992 as a result. But that mantle of loyalty, so fruitlessly squandered and devalued by a generation of Tory MPs in the last three decades, has now been handed to the Labour Party. And as this Government's approval ratings plumb the depths of popularity that sealed Rishi Sunak's fate just before the electorate kicked him out of office, Keir Starmer is going to have to rely on party loyalty more than ever. Consider this: until Jeremy Corbyn's arrival as Labour leader in 2015, no Labour leader had been formally challenged since 1988, when Tony Benn took a tilt at Neil Kinnock, who saw off the Left-wing upstart by securing nearly 90 per cent of the party's support. The 2016 challenge to Corbyn occurred in unique circumstances and was the lesser of the radical solutions Labour MPs had considered in response to the hard Left's unforeseen takeover of the party. For the three decades between those two events, Labour leaders were considered untouchable. And despite Starmer's many difficulties, that remains the case today. There are certainly plenty of MPs who would rather he resigned before the next election, allowing a more convincing successor to try to hold on to the party's governing majority; this would also allow the Prime Minister a chance to seize his place in history as only the second Labour Prime Minister to retire undefeated. But there is zero chance of a formal challenge to his leadership. It's just not the done thing in the Labour Party, especially not to a man who has just won a three-figure majority from a position of near electoral extinction at the previous election. But that doesn't mean that there will be no briefing against him by malcontents, and also by apparently loyal ministers whose grievance is hidden behind a mask of loyalty. The Parliamentary Labour Party is nervous. Well, of course it is. It would be weird if it were not. Languishing nearly ten points behind Reform in almost every poll is not the ideal place for any Government elected barely a year ago, albeit on a wave of apathy rather than enthusiasm. And so journalists eager for salacious gossip will listen attentively as unhappy backbenchers relate dreadful anecdotes about how unpopular the Government is on the doorsteps of their constituencies, and of how the antidote could be for Starmer to be replaced. Much of this briefing will be done anonymously, some of it won't. The Liverpool MP Ian Byrne is not the shrinking violet that many of his colleagues are, and has been outspoken in his criticism of the Government. What is less predictable is the end result of all this unhappiness. In the absence of a formal challenge to Starmer at this year's (or next year's) party conference, his detractors will be hoping that the polls will simply pile up too much bad news to withstand. This is the Labour way, to cross one's fingers and hope for the best, rather than to plot any specific course of action. It's what happened under Gordon Brown, who never once looked in danger of winning the next general election, and who was constantly briefed against by MPs and cabinet colleagues in the forlorn hope he would stand aside and give the Government a fighting chance of re-election. Will this summer's discontent produce a more substantial, not to say more electorally beneficial result? There are certainly plenty of Labour backbenchers who maintain a belief that Starmer can yet turn things around in time for the next election, though what this faith is based on remains unspecified. But the eye-watering levels of disapproval revealed by the latest polling makes Starmer's position all the more vulnerable. Not only is he facing the public perception that he has no concrete principles of his own, and that he is too willing to reverse direction in the face of parliamentary rebellions from his own side. He is also facing unprecedented rival challenges to his party's position as the country's chief recipient of Left-wing support. Aside from the imminent launch (or relaunch) of Jeremy Corbyn's new party, Starmer faces an erosion of his party's support from the Greens and even the Liberal Democrats. All of this is in the context of an insurgent Right-wing party led by Nigel Farage that looks set to displace the Conservatives and present a real populist challenge to the political establishment. Is Starmer up to the challenge? It is the key question that will be asked by Labour backbenchers and activists as the year draws to a close and the next set of local and devolved elections hove into view. Much of their judgment will await those results in May. Unless Starmer has plans to unveil a whole new side to his personality, one that reveals a previously hidden talent for strategic policy and communications, that judgment will be damning.
