Keir Starmer’s deal to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius has been dealt another major blow after a judge ruled that islanders expelled in the 1960s have the right to live there.
The landmark court ruling is a further setback to the beleaguered prime minister, whose efforts to resolve the future of the Chagos Islands, which houses the crucial US-UK airbase on Diego Garcia, have been turned against the government, undoing almost six decades of previous legal judgements on the islands.
The deal was already in trouble because of opposition from Donald Trump after a row over whether the US could use the airbase for attacks on Iran, but now, the judgment handed down by Justice James Lewis, the judge for the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) Court, could finish off the deal altogether.
The case was brought after four Chagossians occupied one of the islands earlier this year in a bid to reclaim their homes, and the BIOT governor attempted to have them removed.
One of them, Louis Misley Mandarin, who said he was elected first minister of the Chagossian government-in-exile last December, told the court: “We are Chagossians… We have long wanted to return, and we had sought permits to visit, but no one answered us, so we have come here to prove we would still like to return.”
In his judgement, Justice Lewis overturned a 2004 law for the islands brought in by Tony Blair’s government to prevent a return to the islands by Chagossians. He has also reversed previous rulings by the Law Lords on their original removal in the 1960s and 1970s.
He concluded that the government’s previous case that there could not be a return to the islands on national security or defence grounds no longer applies because the proposed deal with Mauritius means that the government now accepts the islands can be populated.
He also stated that the cost to the UK taxpayer of the Mauritius deal, which he estimates to be £51bn – higher than any other previous estimate of £35bn over 99 years – means that the argument that it is too costly to enable Chagossians to return has also been invalidated.
Justice Lewis drew on the UK’s United Nations obligations to conclude that the islanders have a “right of abode” on their homeland, which makes it almost impossible to give the islands to Mauritius.
The government has already lodged an appeal against the judgment, which has been granted and will be heard by the BIOT Court of Appeal.
The original decision to negotiate a deal with Mauritius came from a ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which was not binding on the UK, but stated that the islands belonged to Mauritius.
However, this ruling was based on Mauritius being the former colonial administration centre for the islands. Other parts of the British Empire that had been administered from Mauritius gained independence because they were populated.
James Tumbridge, the lawyer acting for the Chagossians, has told The Independent: “Once a population is established on the islands, it changes the entire legal status and means that they should be looked at as their own entity.”
The return of the Chagossians to the islands came in an expedition funded by Reform’s biggest donor, Christopher Harborne and led by former Tory MP and Reform defector Adam Holloway.
But in his ruling, Justice Lewis appears to be critical of Nigel Farage and others from Reform, specifically stating that they do not have the right to go to the islands. Mr Farage had tried to join the four Chagossians last month.
In response to the court’s ruling, Mr Mandarin said: “Today justice has finally begun to catch up with history. For generations, we have lived with exile, with loss, and with the denial of our most basic rights. This judgment restores not just a legal principle, but our dignity as a people.
“We have returned peacefully to our homeland. We ask only to live, to remember, and to belong. Today, the law has recognised what we have always known, that our connection to these islands cannot be erased.”
Mr Tumbridge added: “This judgment shows justice works when people are given the chance to be heard. The decision to forcibly remove British subjects from British land, for the Crown to take away the right of abode, should never have been allowed. Today we can start to right that wrong.”
Claire Bullivant, chief executive of the Great British PAC, which has led the campaign supporting the Chagossians, said: “This is a historic victory. For decades, Chagossians have been denied the most basic right, the right to live in their own homeland. Today’s judgment confirms that the legal basis for that exclusion cannot stand.
“It is hard to overstate the importance of this moment. The government’s entire approach to Chagos, built over more than twenty years, has been fundamentally called into question.”
Shadow foreign secretary Dame Priti Patel MP said: “Keir Starmer’s £35 billion Chagos Surrender is a complete betrayal. And throughout the process, he has sought to sideline the Chagossian people, treating them as nothing but an inconvenience.
“Chagossians, many of whom have no desire to see the islands handed over to an ally of China, ended up taking matters into their own hands. And now this latest humiliation has further undermined the government’s case.
“Starmer needs to face reality and abandon this appalling deal cooked up by Peter Mandelson and Jonathan Powell.”
