Sir Keir Starmer has been accused of “bending the knee to Mauritius” after it emerged the cost of the Chagos Islands deal could double.
Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam told his country’s National Assembly on Monday that a renegotiated deal on the return of the archipelago would see payments from the UK for the lease of Diego Garcia linked to inflation.
Diego Garcia, the largest of the Chagos Islands, is home to a joint UK-US military base which Britain would lease for 99 years under the proposed deal.
Mr Ramgoolam said the previous deal, negotiated last year by his predecessor, had allowed the UK to unilaterally extend that lease for 40 years, but the new terms would require Mauritian consent, effectively giving the island nation a veto.
He referred to a phone call with Sir Keir last Friday, saying the Prime Minister “informed me that he intends to push ahead with the agreement” and adding: “We remain confident that it will reach a speedy resolution in the coming weeks.”
Describing the previous deal as a “sellout”, Mr Ramgoolam said the new deal was “unambiguous” on Mauritius’s sovereignty over the islands and that the UK’s annual payments under the lease would be linked to inflation and frontloaded, suggesting this could double the amount Britain was due to pay.
He said: “We have to be inflation-proof. What’s the point of getting money and then having half of it by the end? This is what would happen, we have made the calculations.”
Reports have put the cost of the previous deal at around £9 billion, although this figure has been disputed by UK officials.
Navin Ramgoolam (Alamy/PA)
He added that the deal is being reviewed by the new US administration, where senior figures have expressed concern that ceding control of the islands could weaken western influence in the Indian Ocean and strengthen the reach of China.
Mr Ramgoolam told the National Assembly: “President Trump is not a wolf. Let him see if the agreement is good or not.
“Now the British have, late in the day, decided that, yes, it is better to let the new administration have a look, that is what the situation is.”
Conservatives in the UK, who opened negotiations on returning the Chagos Islands in 2022 but have been critical of the deal since it was announced by Labour last year, seized on Mr Ramgoolam’s remarks.
Dame Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, accused Sir Keir of “putting his leftie shame of our country’s history over our national security and our longstanding relationship with our closest ally”.
Dame Priti Patel accused the Government of ’emboldening our enemies’ (Lucy North/PA)
She said: “He has the audacity to tell the British people they will foot the bill and pay for the indignity of his surrender of the Chagos Islands, as he isolates the new US administration by bending the knee to Mauritius and emboldening our enemies with his disastrous surrender deal.”
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said the Prime Minister should “come to Parliament and be honest with MPs” about what she called a “foolish deal”.
Although Mauritius has sought to build relations with China, it remains one of only two African nations not to have signed up to Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative and is a close ally of India, which has frosty relations with Beijing.
Downing Street declined to comment on Mr Ramgoolam’s remarks, saying the Government would put further details of the treaty before Parliament “once an agreement is reached”.
A Number 10 spokesman insisted the UK would “only agree a deal that is in our national interests and protects our national security”, adding: “Our position remains that finalising a deal means that we can secure strong protections, including from malign influence, that will allow the base to continue to operate.”