Ministers Prepare to Reopen Chagos Talks With Mauritius
Senior government figures are said to be under no illusion that the treaty signed under Sir Keir Starmer can be revived after Mr Trump restated his opposition to the Prime Minister’s face on Tuesday, and officials are preparing to return to negotiations. The original terms were £165m a year for three years and £120m a year for the following ninety-six, to lease back Diego Garcia. One Whitehall source put it simply: “We are going to have to go back to the drawing board.”
The “dead deal” framing comes from anonymous Whitehall sources; the on-record position is narrower, that the agreement cannot proceed without American support. Wes Streeting made the case for not simply abandoning it: “The ostrich strategy of sticking our heads in the sand and hoping it will go away, I would caution, is not a wise strategy when it concerns one of the most sensitive national security assets we have anywhere in the world.” That is the bind. The legal pressure that produced the treaty has not gone away — a United Nations vote in 2019 and an International Court of Justice opinion by thirteen to one backed Mauritius — while the money has stopped and the counterparty has no reason to accept less. One official floated cosmetic changes modelled on the Greenland agreement. Watch Port Louis.