Chagos Islands deal ends Britain's last claim to a sunlit empire

The Age

25-05-2025

The arrangement allows the UK and US to maintain Diego Garcia's military functions unchallenged, shielded from legal challenges that had increasingly threatened its status.
'We had to act now,' Starmer said. 'The base was under threat.'
'If we do not agree this deal … we would not be able to prevent China, or any other nation, setting up their own bases on the outer islands,' he warned. 'There is no alternative but to act in Britain's national interest.'
About 9300 kilometres south-east of the UK, and about 2000 kilometres north-east of Mauritius, Diego Garcia lies at a crucial choke point between the Indian Ocean and key maritime routes.
Its remote location enables a secure base for operations, supporting naval carriers and intelligence-gathering efforts critical to counterterrorism and nuclear monitoring in an age of rising Indo-Pacific tension with China.
To lose that capability – Starmer argued – would be irresponsible, even dangerous.
'We would lose the first line of defence against other countries who wish to interfere and disrupt this capability … rendering it practically useless,' he said.
On paper, the agreement is a hard-headed military lease cloaked in diplomatic compromise.
The UK will retain full operational control, including the electromagnetic spectrum satellite used for communications, and enforce a 24-nautical-mile buffer zone around the island within which nothing can be built or placed without British consent. Mauritius is also prohibited from allowing foreign security forces on the outer islands, ensuring the base remains under Western control.
The UK government maintains that the deal offers value for money.
Which countries are still Commonwealth realms?
Antigua and Barbuda
Australia
The Bahamas
Belize
Canada
Grenada
Jamaica
New Zealand
Papua New Guinea
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Lucia
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Solomon Islands
Tuvalu
United Kingdom
Starmer noted that the average £101 million annual lease payment 'is the same, or slightly less than, the running cost of an aircraft carrier minus the aircraft'.
Additional payments include £45 million annually for 25 years to support economic development projects in Mauritius and £40 million to establish a trust fund for former Chagos residents.
For the Chagossians – descendants of the Afro-Creole islanders forcibly expelled in the 1960s and '70s – the flag change is not the final chapter but another betrayal.
Some 1500 islanders were uprooted to make way for the US base. The British government once described them dismissively as 'a few Tarzans and Man Fridays' and dumped them in Mauritius and Seychelles with little compensation. Decades later, many still live in poverty, facing discrimination and fading hopes of return.
Now, they watch as their birthplace is transferred from one former coloniser to another – again, with little say.
'Sir Keir Starmer is washing his hands of the Chagossian people,' Bernadette Dugasse, who led a last-minute legal bid to block the deal, told reporters.
'We are not 100 per cent sure everyone will benefit. Most of us still live in the same conditions 50 years after we arrived. I don't trust the Mauritian government.'
The British government concedes that while resettlement on the outer islands is 'theoretically possible', it remains logistically daunting. The £45 million annual support fund for Mauritius will be administered solely by the Mauritian government, without direct UK oversight.
'We had to act now. The base was under threat.'
British PM Keir Starmer
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch condemned the deal as 'an expensive surrender' and accused Labour of saddling taxpayers with enormous costs for diminishing returns. Nigel Farage accused Starmer of 'selling off a Cold War jewel to the highest bidder'.
Yet Starmer pointed to the support from key allies.
'It is worth reminding ourselves who is in favour of this treaty – the US, NATO, Five Eyes, India. Against it? Russia, China, Iran, and surprisingly, the leader of the opposition and Nigel Farage.'
In Washington, where the Trump administration had once questioned the deal, it hailed the agreement. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Diego Garcia 'critical to regional and global security'. US President Donald Trump gave his personal blessing during a February meeting with Starmer.
The deeper concern now shifts to what the Chagos handover signals for Britain's other overseas holdings. Critics warn it may set a precedent, casting long shadows over sovereign base areas such as Akrotiri and Dhekelia in Cyprus – and even stirring uncertainty in places such as Gibraltar and the Falklands.
British Foreign Secretary David Lammy insists those territories 'are not up for negotiation', but the UK's claim that Chagos is a one-off will be tested by time – and by those watching closely.
'The decision on Chagos shows that the UK government understands a need for new thinking on how to preserve the more remote outposts of British influence,' Samir Puri, the director of the Global Governance and Security Centre at Chatham House, said last year.
'There are understandable concerns that, as a result of the decision, China may develop commercial ports in the region and seek to compete with India for economic and strategic relationships. But this is a long-term matter of concern to monitor, regardless of the UK's decision on Chagos.'
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The deal isn't just another post-colonial housekeeping exercise. It is Britain confronting – and recalibrating – its place in the 21st century. It will keep Diego Garcia operational, and will still help shape Indo-Pacific security, but only by paying rent to a former colony.
And it has been forced – not by war, but by international law – to give back what it once claimed as its own.