US President Donald Trump will be “laughing” at the Chagos Islands agreement because he has got a “great deal at the expense of the UK”, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch claimed. She hit out after Keir Starmer’s Government was accused of paying more than £30 billion to to give the Indian Ocean island chain to Mauritius and rent back a key military base.
“Donald Trump is laughing at that Chagos deal,” the Conservative Party leader told BBC Breakfast. “He’s welcoming it because he’s not going to have to pay very much, if anything at all. He’s got a great deal at the expense of the UK. That’s not right. It hasn’t been done in our national interest.
“What I want to see is more nurses being paid well but we can’t do that because we’re taking a lot of terrible decisions under Keir Starmer that are weakening our country.”
Ministers say the UK is paying to lease the base but the US is paying the operating costs.
The US pays “many multiples more” to operate the US-UK joint military base on the Chagos Islands than the UK will pay to Mauritius to maintain control of it, a minister has said.
Armed forces minister Luke Pollard was asked why the US is not contributing to the cost of leasing back the Diego Garcia military base.
“What we are bringing to the deal is the real estate, the UK will be leasing the base and the Americans pay for the operating costs of the base – now that is many multiples more than the leasing cost,” he told Times Radio.
He said the deal will protect the UK’s right to “operate without restriction” from the base and maintain the partnership there between the US and UK.
In a treaty to “complete the process of decolonisation of Mauritius” the British Government has agreed to pay at least £120 million-a-year for 99 years for control of the vital Diego Garcia military base, plus hand over £1.125 billion for economic development over a 25-year period.
Ministers argued that the deal needed to be done because the UK would have faced legal challenges “within weeks” which could have jeopardised the operation of the Indian Ocean base which is used by US and British forces.
The International Court of Justice, in an advisory opinion in 2019, said the Chagos Archipelago should be handed over.
Under the deal, the UK will pay £165 million in each of the first three years.
From years four to 13 it will pay a fixed £120 million, after which payments will be indexed to inflation until the end of the deal.
An annual grant of £45 million a year for 25 years will begin in the fourth year of the deal to support development, with British firms involved “to the maximum extent practicable”.
£40 million payment will set up a trust fund for the benefit of Chagossians.
