Sir Keir Starmer has been warned Mauritius is looking to extract more concessions from his “disgraceful” Chagos Islands “surrender”.
Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam is under pressure domestically to secure more money from the UK and evict the US military from its Diego Garcia naval base.
A gaggle of politicians, trade unionists and writers urged Ramgoolam to ensure an end to “war and genocide” on the archipelago.
The current terms of the deal ensure that Britain’s transfers sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius and pays £90million a year for 99 years.
Sir Keir Starmer
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However, Narendranath Gopee, the president of the Mauritian National Trade Union Congress, Lindsey Collen, a prize-winning Mauritian novelist, and 18 others, told Ramgoolam to “seize the moment” and “insist upon the closure of the military base on Diego Garcia”.
Responding to the push for more concessions, Tory peer Lord Daniel Hannan said: “Starmer does not mean a word he says about growth or about national security.
“If he did, the first thing he would do is call a halt to this disgraceful surrender.”
James Glancy, a former Royal Marine who stood as a Brexit Party MEP in 2019, added: “Mauritius is already planning on reneging on Labour’s sell out deal of the Chagos. Treacherous idiots.”
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Navinchandra Ramgoolam
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Despite criticisms over the state of negotiations, Whitehall remains adamant that the deal is legally watertight.
The Prime Minister will hope to secure Donald Trump’s blessing following his visit to Washington later this week.
However, eyebrows were raised over last week after the Foreign Office refused to reveal the cost of the negotiations that led to the Chagos Deal.
Foreign Office Minister Stephen Doughty said: “Costs, including those of staffing, legal counsel, travel and accommodation and other expenses arising from the negotiations have been incorporated into the budgets of those departments involved in the negotiations.
Downing Street has defended the deal around the Chagos ArchipelagoREUTERS“There has been no central aggregation of those costs.
“To go back over costs and expenses for the last three years in different parts of FCDO, different finance systems, and data that would have to be manually checked would exceed reasonable costs.”
The Foreign Office has repeatedly refused to the drawn on the full cost of the deal, which is understood to cost at least £9billion over the course of its 99-year timeframe.
The Prime Minsiter and Foreign Secretary David Lammy defend the decision to hand over the Chagos Islands due to the International Court of Justice’s controversial 2019 ruling.
A Foreign Office spokesman insisted the deal includes “robust security provisions that would keep our adversaries not just out of Diego Garcia but out of the whole area”.
The spokesman added that this would include a “buffer zone” around the military base, meaning nothing could be built without consent from the UK.