22-05-2025
The Government's Chagos deal is a bewildering embarrassment
SIR – Sir Keir Starmer has a habit of making bad decisions that others have to correct, as with Labour backbenchers forcing a U-turn on his winter fuel cuts (Letters, May 22).
Sometimes, however, this isn't possible. Despite an attempt to stop him, he has now given away the Chagos Islands ('Starmer's Chagos deal given go-ahead as 11th-hour challenge fails', May 22).
This deal threatens to cost Britain at least £10 billion. The winter fuel changes would have saved £1 billion. As well as lacking judgment and a moral compass, it appears our Prime Minister is numerically inept.
John Hicks
Manchester
SIR – I am at a complete loss as to why the Government has been so determined to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, when there is no legal requirement to do so. We are in enough financial trouble already; to heap yet another £10 billion on to our national debt, while losing a strategic asset, smacks of total incompetence – at best.
Gp Capt G R James RAF (retd)
Barnstaple, Devon
SIR – We owned the Chagos Islands, which contained our major military base in the Indian Ocean. We have given them away to Mauritius, a country with strong links to China, for nothing. Now we intend to lease the base back for £101 million a year for the next 99 years.
If I'm not missing anything, then surely, to any sensible person, this is a catastrophic mistake in every possible respect, akin to giving Gibraltar to Spain.
John Kerry
Fleckney, Leicestershire
SIR – One of the many enormous disadvantages of the Chagos deal – there are no substantive advantages – is that Britain has ceased to be an Indian Ocean power. Among the Europeans, we now concede that position to France.
While we talk of trade deals with India and advice on cybersecurity, we have little of hard strategic value in the region, and certainly – after Chagos – we will no longer have a seat at yet another top table.
Geoffrey Van Orden
Bildeston, Suffolk
SIR – As well as being a strategic disaster, the decision to hand over the Chagos Islands betrays the Chagossian people. Thanks to Sir Keir Starmer, they have been denied the opportunity to decide their own future.
David Lawson
Dungannon, Co Tyrone
SIR – Why is the Prime Minister allowed to make long-term deals with the European Union and over the Chagos Islands without proper reference to Parliament?
Brian Farmer
Carmarthen
