Labour’s destructiveness has extended into areas — including (checks notes) the Indian Ocean.
However (very) bad Britain’s Conservative government may have been, the Labour government that has replaced it has proved to be infinitely worse. Much of this (such as the doubling down on net zero) was predictable, but Labour’s destructiveness has extended into areas — including (checks notes) the Indian Ocean — that have surprised even the gloomier pessimists.
First, some background (warning: this takes a while). The Chagos Islands are a tiny archipelago in the middle of that vast ocean. A couple of centuries ago, they were a “dependency” of French-run Isle de France, about 1,300 miles away. In 1814, Isle de France and its dependencies were handed over to Britain. Isle de France reverted to its early (Dutch) name of Mauritius.
In 1965, the British split off the archipelago from Mauritius. Over time, the inhabitants (roughly 1,000 people) of what had become the British Indian Ocean Territory were expelled to either Mauritius or the Seychelles, another British colony at the time. Another thousand or so former “Chagossians” were not allowed to return home. All this was to make room for a major U.S. military base (which is also used by the British) on the archipelago’s largest island, Diego Garcia. Locating the base on “unpopulated” territory, it was thought, might protect the base from U.N. “decolonialization” efforts (it didn’t). Diego Garcia has become a vital U.S. base in a region in which China is making steady encroachment, including building close ties with the government of Mauritius.
Mauritius, independent since 1968, has been claiming ownership of the Chagos Archipelago for decades, despite earlier undertaking not to do so. Various branches of the transnational bureaucracy have “ruled” that Mauritius has a good claim, including an advisory ruling from the International Court of Justice. The U.K. has long rejected Mauritius’s claims. However, a couple of years ago, the then-Conservative government entered into talks with the Mauritian government about the archipelago’s future (why?). These seem to have gotten nowhere, but they created an opening that Labour exploited with a quick, strategically stupid surrender.
The archipelago will go to Mauritius, as will money. Simultaneously, Mauritius will grant the U.K. a 99-year lease over the land where the base is located. The Chagossians were (once again) not consulted, and a number of them don’t sound so pleased at the idea of Mauritian rule. The U.S. appears to have gone along, probably less enthusiastically than some happy-talkers have suggested.
As deals go, this is about as dimwitted a giveaway as can be imagined. In exchange for an evanescent moment or two of valueless approval from the international “community,” the U.K. has given up a useful slice of territory close to key trade routes between Asia and Europe and jeopardized the security of vital American and British military and intelligence assets. Britain’s surrender has also sent a dangerous message of weakness, not only to Spain over Gibraltar, and Argentina over the Falklands, but to hostile powers such as China and Russia. And the Chagossians, once again, have been treated appallingly.
The handover has yet to be approved by Britain’s Parliament, but, given the size of Labour’s majority, there can be little doubt that it will be.