The government’s latest difficulties in the House of Lords over plans to surrender the Chagos islands is another humiliation for Keir Starmer, but it is also one last opportunity to avert a historic mistake.

The Prime Minister proposes to hand over the Chagos to Mauritius, which has never exercised sovereignty over a cluster of Indian Ocean islands which have been British for two centuries. Starmer has agreed to pay Mauritius £101 million every year for 99 years to lease back one of the islands, Diego Garcia, which is home to a joint UK-US military base. 

On Monday, peers outvoted the government on four key amendments. These would require ministers to publish a breakdown of payments to Mauritius, give MPs oversight of these transactions, and stop paying if the island base becomes unusable. (Paying billions for a base we’ve been told we can’t use would be the most British thing ever.) A fourth amendment, from the Lib Dems, would give UK-based Chagossians a referendum on Starmer’s plan.

The deal now goes back to the Commons. MPs should welcome this as a chance to apply an eleventh-hour handbrake on an ill-conceived and wholly unnecessary treaty that is bad for Britain’s national security, bad for its financial resources, and bad for the indigenous Chagossians. 

There is no reason whatsoever........

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