Month: October 2024

Labour has settled one of the last remaining wrongs of British colonial rule

News Briefing

The government has finally put right one of the last wrongs remaining from British colonial rule.

In the 1960s we severed the Chagos Islands from Mauritius and then expelled hundreds of islanders so we could lease the tropical atoll of Diego Garcia to the US military.

This was later judged illegal by the international courts and criticised by the UN. Now, at last, we have agreed to hand the islands back to Mauritius.

Confected Tory anger at this should be dismissed as the hypocritical rantings of a party which still hankers after empire.

‘Dame of shame’ Labour gives away strategic islands

News Briefing

WHAT a day of ignominy for the new ­Government — not just giving away strategically vital British territory but handing taxpayers an endless bill for the privilege.

Labour has taken mere weeks to capitulate entirely, despite Mauritius’s historic claim having no validity — it never owned the islands — nor being legally binding.

The Chagos debacle weakens us militarily while, incredibly, forcing us to pay unknown sums to Mauritius every year.