The passage of Sir Keir Starmer’s Chagos Islands deal through parliament has been “paused” after Donald Trump urged the prime minister to scrap it, a minister has said.
Foreign office minister Hamish Falconer said on Wednesday that while the US had initially expressed its support for the deal, the US president’s intervention earlier this month was “very significant.”
Ministers had previously denied the Bill to ratify the deal had been delayed, but Mr Falconer told MPs that the government was now “pausing” for discussions with the US before bringing the proposed legislation back to parliament.
“We have a process going through parliament in relation to the treaty,” he said.
“We will bring that back to parliament at the appropriate time. We are pausing for discussions with our American counterparts.”
Last year, Sir Keir agreed a controversial deal to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, while retaining control of the UK-US military base on Diego Garcia.
The UK has agreed to pay Mauritius at least £120m annually during the 99-year agreement to lease back the site, a total cost in cash terms of at least £13bn.
Earlier this month, Mr Trump hit at at Starmer in his second U-turn on support for the deal to hand over UK sovereignty of the archipelago to Mauritius.
In a post on Truth Social, the US president branded the move a “big mistake” because of concerns over the joint UK-US military base on the island of Diego Garcia.
More follows on this breaking news story…
