From the Telegraph:
On Wednesday, Sky asked Mr Streeting whether he believed the Chagos agreement inherited from Sir Keir’s administration was good enough.
He replied: “I was a member of the Cabinet that agreed the deal with the government of Mauritius, and I stand by the decision that was taken then. But at the same time, the principle we followed all the way through is that it needs to have the support of the Americans.
“We will work together to get to a point where both the governments of Mauritius and the UK but also the Americans can sign up to this, because Diego Garcia is extremely important to the Americans as well as to us and our collective security.”
But nevertheless we’re committed to handing it over to Mauritius, an ally of China, and pay billions of pounds for the privilege.
Despite Mr Trump’s long-standing opposition to the deal, Mr Burnham told the Mauritian prime minister on Monday that he would do “everything possible” to ensure that it would take effect.
A series of Mauritian legal challenges over the sovereignty of the islands were accepted by the International Court of Justice in 2019.
A reminder, from Kel Mansfield, of those legal challenges:
For their own purposes, Starmer and his AG, Lord Hermer, made a political decision to abide by the International Court of Justice’s 2019 advisory-only, non-binding ruling that Chagos should be given to Mauritius.
The ICJ ruling was gained by Mauritius’s counsel for Chagos, Philippe Sands, a close friend and colleague of Starmer’s and Hermer’s.
Starmer, Sands and Hermer made International law with the rulings and precedents they obtained while working as barristers on the lucrative international court circuit, and are understandably keen to promote international law, having helped create much of it.
Also:
Ratifying the Chagos Treaty will create a legal precedent that will open the floodgates to an unending stream of claims for reparations for slavery and compensation for the British Empire’s perceived historic “sins”.
Those historic “sins” being a key part of Labour’s motivation, as Streeting admitted: “Where the legal dispute on this started was when we decolonised.”
Note that Mauritius has no claim to the Chagos Islands beyond their proximity. Like Argentina’s claim to the Falklands. If the International Court of Justice decides that the Falklands should be given to Argentina, will Burnham and co. then just hand them over?
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