UK halts Chagos Islands handover after US opposition
• Move comes after President Trump slams deal as ‘big mistake’
• Legislation underpinning the deal shelved; standoff leaves indigenous Chagossians in limbo
LONDON: Britain’s government said Saturday it has put on hold its deal to cede sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, following criticism from US President Donald Trump over the future of a crucial joint military base on the archipelago.
The planned legislation to underpin the deal, which requires Washington’s backing, will not be included in the government’s upcoming parliamentary agenda, The Times newspaper reported.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office said London would continue to seek Washington’s formal approval for the agreement.
The deal has become a point of contention in what analysts describe as a period of strained relations between the two historical allies. Under the agreement, Britain would hand the islands back to Mauritius while retaining control of the strategically vital US-British military base on the atoll of Diego Garcia through a 99-year lease, preserving American military operations there.
A British government spokesperson said the base’s operational security remains a top priority.
“We continue to believe the agreement is the best way to protect the long-term future of the base, but we have always said we would only proceed with the deal if it has US support,” the spokesperson said. “We are continuing to engage with the US and Mauritius.”
Trump has voiced strong opposition to the plan, calling the deal a “big mistake” and “an act of great stupidity” in recent months.
The disagreement over the Chagos Islands comes amid other tensions between the two leaders.
The alliance has been tested by Starmer’s initial refusal to allow the US to use British air bases to launch attacks in the US-Israeli war on Iran.
US forces have since been permitted to carry out strikes that Starmer has defined as defensive. Trump has also publicly criticised the British leader, saying he was “not Winston Churchill” and had damaged the “special relationship”.
Mauritius Attorney General Gavin Glover said the delay was expected.
“The information that the agreement has been put on hold does not come as a surprise to us,” Glover told local media Saturday, blaming frayed relations between the American and British leaders. “The deterioration in relations between Keir Starmer and Donald Trump is at the root of the problem, as the United Kingdom needs the United States to be aligned with the treaty.”
Glover added that officials from Mauritius and Britain are scheduled to hold discussions on the deal later this month.
Vows to reclaim islands
Mauritius Foreign Minister Dhananjay Ramful vowed Saturday that his country would continue to pursue every option to regain the islands.
“We will spare no effort to seize any diplomatic or legal avenue to complete the decolonisation process in this part of the Indian Ocean,” Ramful said. “This is a matter of justice.”
Advocates for the indigenous Chagossian people, who were forcibly displaced from the islands by Britain in the late 1960s and 1970s to create the base, expressed dismay at the development.
Toby Noskwith, a spokesperson for the campaign group Indigenous Chagossian People, said the group was “astonished to have come to this point”.
“This has been framed mainly as a state-to-state issue but the people who have been lost throughout the process are the Chagossians, particularly elders and survivors,” Noskwith said.
He added that questions needed to be asked about “the enormous sums of money which have been wasted on a collapsed negotiation, and the legality of conceiving a plan which denied the Chagossians their right to self-determination”.
Published in Dawn, April 12th, 2026
