Alarms have been sounding for some time about Labour Party British Premier Keir Starmer’s efforts to turn the strategically important Chagos Islands over to China friend Mauritius.
Parliamentary ratification of the deal has now been delayed by an amendment proposed in the House of Lords that, in the words of shadow defense secretary James Carlidge, “would prevent the UK from continuing payments to Mauritius in circumstances where the [Diego Garcia] military base were to be inoperable.”
But even if this amendment gets attached to the deal, it cannot turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse. The transfer must be stopped altogether. Of course it would be dumb for the UK to set itself up to be contractually bound to keep paying for a military base that has become useless. By why jeopardize the base and its effectiveness at all?
Help, Mr. President
Because British opponents of the deal have not yet been able to kill it, U.S. policy maven Kevin Roberts and UK policy maven Nile Gardiner have joined forces to implore U.S. President Donald Trump to step in (The Telegraph, January 6, 2025).
The capture of Venezuelan tyrant Nicolás Maduro was “a huge blow and humiliation for Communist China, a close partner of the Maduro regime,” they write.
But thousands of miles away in the Indian Ocean, China is about to receive a huge strategic win courtesy of the British Government, unless it can be stopped….
The staggeringly reckless decision by Starmer’s Labour Government to hand over the British Indian Ocean Territory to Chinese ally Mauritius following an earlier advisory ruling by the UN International Court of Justice in The Hague is one of the most dangerous acts of self-harm by the United Kingdom in its post-war history.
The Territory includes the Chagos Archipelago, which is the home of the strategically vital US-UK military base of Diego Garcia. Under the proposed deal, the British Government will pay Mauritius close to a staggering £35bn [bn = billion] to lease Diego Garcia over the course of the next 99 years. This goes over the objections of the indigenous inhabitants of the Islands, the Chagossians, who overwhelmingly wish to remain under British sovereignty.
The authors point out that the Diego Garcia base was a big help during the June 2025 U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuke workshops and that the base deters bad-guy regimes like Iran, Russia, and China “across the Indian Ocean.”
Since the Brits would be paying Mauritius oodles of pounds to lease the U.S.-UK base (which the United Kingdom with the United States already controls without paying Mauritius a farthing), doesn’t this mean at least that the strategic value of Diego Garcia would persist unabated if Parliament signs off on the deal?
Not if the government of Mauritius, which under its terms would otherwise have sovereignty over the islands, agrees to let the Chinese build its own base “in close proximity to Diego Garcia, with endless opportunities for spying on US and British military activities.”
Mauritius could also sign a defence agreement with Beijing granting China access to the waters around the Chagos Islands, making the base at Diego Garcia practically impossible to operate for the United States.
There is also the very real possibility that Mauritius could renege on the agreement with Britain in the coming years, and agree to sell the Islands at a higher price to China, forcing the US/UK base to close altogether.
Yeah, no matter how you slice it, the deal is bonkers squared, even unintelligible unless Starmer (shown above) and his allies in the Labour Party are really just double agents installed by the Chinese Communist Party or are, in fact, not men but jellyfish.
So what do Gardiner and Roberts want President Trump to do?
Urgent review
Speak out, mainly. The Chagos deal is such a “hugely risky, monumental folly with incredibly dangerous potential outcomes for the US” that President Trump “should call for an urgent review before it is ratified in Parliament. The full implications of the Chagos deal for Diego Garcia should be subject to a detailed and exhaustive analysis by the White House and Pentagon, as well as Congressional hearings on Capitol Hill in both the House and Senate.”
Would a slew of hearings and reams of super-detailed analysis even be necessary, seeing as how the hazards of the suicidal deal are so obvious?
Let’s also have U.S. congressional hearings and analysis. Anything to raise the profile of the question. But it should suffice for Trump to slam Starmer’s deal nonstop on Truth Social until it is positively, absolutely, undeniably and reliably dead.
Also see:
LBC: “Peers strike blow against Starmer’s Chagos deal with controversial amendment backed”
Hot Air: “House of Lords Slams the Brakes on Starmer’s Chagos Island Deal”
The National: “US bombers line up at Diego Garcia base as Iran strike looms”
StoptheCCP.org: “On Courage: Our Ultimate Weapon Against the Chinese Communist Party”
