PULSE POINTS:

❓What Happened: British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer signed a deal transferring the Chagos Islands’ sovereignty to Mauritius, with a 99-year leaseback of the Diego Garcia military base for £101m annually.

👥 Who’s Involved: British and Mauritian governments, U.S. military, Chagossian community, Sir Keir Starmer, Reform Party leader Nigel Farage and deputy leader Richard Tice.

📍 Where & When: Chagos Islands, Diego Garcia; agreement signed on Thursday in a virtual ceremony.

💬 Key Quote: “Why is Starmer so desperate to give away the islands? There is no legal need, it will cost us approximately £52 billion, and play into the hands of China. Why?” — Reform Party leader Nigel Farage.

⚠️ Impact: The deal has sparked protests from Chagossians and raised concerns over Mauritius’ ties to China. Despite the Diego Garcia lease, the UK-U.S. base could still be undermined by Mauritius authorizing a Chinese base on a neighboring island in the archipelago.

IN FULL:

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has finalized a controversial agreement transferring sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius while securing a 99-year lease for the Diego Garcia military base, a key UK-US strategic site, at a cost of £101 (~$135.5 million) per year.

The deal, signed on Thursday during a virtual ceremony, has faced sharp criticism from opposition politicians and Chagossians. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch argued, “We should not be paying to surrender British territory to Mauritius”—although her party also conducted talks with Mauritius on handing over the islands when it was in government.

Reform Party leader Nigel Farage demanded, “Why is Starmer so desperate to give away the islands? There is no legal need, it will cost us approximately £52 billion, and play into the hands of China. Why?” Reform deputy leader Richard Tice denounced the agreement as “another Starmer surrender sell-out.”

The Chagos Archipelago was separated from Mauritius when the latter ceased to be a British colony, becoming the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). However, Chagos had only been part of Mauritius for administrative purposes. The two island territories are around 1,200 miles apart, and the Chagossians, displaced from their islands in the late 1960s, oppose the islands’ transfer to Mauritius. Two Chagossian women, Bernadette Dugasse and Bertice Pompe, even unsuccessfully challenged the agreement in court, arguing Chagossians were excluded from decision-making about their ancestral homeland.

The United Nations’ International Court of Justice (ICJ) and General Assembly had ruled that Britain should transfer Chagos to Mauritius, but these were non-binding decisions, and Starmer was under no obligation to obey them, much less pay Mauritius for the privilege of surrendering British sovereign territory. Diego Garcia, the archipelago’s largest island, has hosted a joint UK-U.S. military base since the late 1960s, and it remains a vital strategic hub in the Indian Ocean.

Notably, even though Britain will continue to lease the Diego Garcia base from Mauritius, the latter’s ties to China raise concerns that it could render Diego Garcia largely redundant by allowing the Chinese military to establish a base on another Chagossian island nearby.

Britain previously transferred Hong Kong, the bulk of which was leased to Britain in perpetuity in the 1840s, with the New Territories being leased for 99 years in 1898, to Communist China, despite the agreements on the territory having been concluded with the former Qing Empire. Promises that Hong Kongers’ liberties would be preserved under a one-country, two-systems policy have unravelled, and they are now subject to authoritarian rule with no outside oversight.

Similarly, U.S. influence over the America-built Panama Canal waned when the late President Jimmy Carter agreed to transfer the Panama Canal Zone to the Panamanian government, despite the U.S. having purchased control over the zone from the Panamanians “in perpetuity.” Carter’s deal resulted in a rise in Chinese influence at the expense of the U.S., which is only now being corrected by concerted action on the part of the Trump administration.