UK to review Chagos deal without US backing
Defence Secretary Wes Streeting, who was in the cabinet that agreed the deal, said the decision still stood, but that the agreement had always needed American support.
The UK government must review its deal to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius because the United States does not support it, Defence Secretary Wes Streeting has said.
President Donald Trump criticised the deal again on 22 September, at the UN General Assembly in New York. Streeting spoke the following day, in a round of broadcast interviews.
“I was a member of the cabinet that agreed the deal with the government of Mauritius, and I stand by the decision that was taken, I’m not going to try to absolve myself of it now,” Streeting said.
But the deal had always needed American support, Streeting said — the principle the government followed all the way through.
“So objectively, in the absence of support from the Americans, is this deal good enough? No,” Streeting added.
“What President Trump said yesterday wasn’t new but I think it does provide absolute clarity that his position on this Chagos deal as currently drafted is not changing,” Streeting told the BBC.
“So we have to do more work with our American allies, with President Trump and his administration, to get the deal to a place where he can support it.”
The review is not expected to be a formal process with a set timetable.
Streeting said the focus now would be long-term certainty for the base on Diego Garcia, the largest island in the archipelago.
It had been the view of every UK prime minister since Boris Johnson, Streeting said, that the continuing legal process risked the security of the base.
Mauritius argues it was forced illegally to give up the islands in 1965, in return for independence.
The deal, agreed under Sir Keir Starmer, has stalled before: it was put on hold indefinitely in April, when Trump withdrew support.
Under the agreement, signed on 22 May 2025, the UK would transfer sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius and keep the joint UK-US military base on Diego Garcia under a 99-year lease.
The UK would pay an average of £101m a year for the base. The government has put the net overall cost of the deal at £3.4bn.
The deal also requires a 1966 British-American treaty on the islands to be amended, according to an analysis by Dr Tom Frost of Loughborough University.
That depends on formal letters being exchanged between the two governments, and the US has not sent its letter.
The Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill, which would have brought the deal into law, had nearly passed all its parliamentary stages before time ran out in this session.
There are no plans to introduce a new bill in the next parliament.