Sir Keir Starmer has been warned that he faces “total humiliation” on the world stage with his plans to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius on the brink of collapse in the next 48 hours.
With Sir Keir’s national security adviser Jonathan Powell heading to the US in a late bid to dissuade Donald Trump from vetoing the controversial deal, doubts have now also been raised by the new prime minister of Mauritius, Navinchandra Ramgoolam, who has expressed doubts about the deal struck with his predecessor.
After a meeting with Mr Powell earlier this week, Mr Ramgoolam said: “I informed them that I wished to have more time to study the details with a panel of legal advisers.”
Previously he had described it as “high treason and a sellout” because the UK and US would still be allowed to use an airbase on the islands in the Indian Ocean.
The new Mauritian government’s first cabinet meeting will take place on Friday, when they are expected to look at whether to continue with the deal which is due to be completed next summer, leaving the entire agreement on the brink. However, even if they do agree to stick with it, Mr Trump’s team are hardening their opposition to what they consider to be a major security risk for the West.
The UK prime minister and his foreign secretary David Lammy have insisted that they had no choice but to hand over the islands, including Diego Garcia where the UK and US have their major airforce base, to Mauritius because of a ruling by the International Court of Justice.
Mr Lammy has doubled down claiming that the deal is “good one” guaranteeing the use of the airbase for the next 99 years. But the government has refused to publish details and costs of the deal.
But Tory shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge, who has been pressing for answers on the plan, told The Independent: “If this deal collapses it will be a total humiliation for Starmer and Lammy.”
Mr Lammy told MPs on the foreign affairs select committee that he is confident the deal will be agreed but conceded the new Mauritian government needed time to study it.
He said: “We have only just engaged with the new government in Mauritius, there was an exchange of letters between the prime minister and the new leader of Mauritius. We have got to give them time to get into the arrangements, but I hope we can sign the treaty.”
He dismissed previous comments on “high treason” as being words “during an election campaign”.
Asked about the incoming Trump administration’s opposition, he noted: “The national security agencies in the United States think this is a good deal. The state department think this is a good deal. Most important the Pentagon and White House think this is a good deal.”
Mr Lammy also declined to say whether alleged phone hacking by the previous government, revealed by The Independent, was a problem in the negotiations but told MPs it was “being investigated properly”.
On Wednesday night, culture secretary Lisa Nandy told ITV’s Robert Peston she was confident Mr Trump would not veto the deal.
“My experience of President Trump last time he was in office is that his team was very pragmatic... they’ll see that that is in our mutual interest,” she said.
The Independent revealed this week that the Trump team has been seeking assurances that Sir Keir would not try to accelerate the deal to get it completed before his inauguration in January. Joe Biden’s outgoing administration backed the deal but following an intervention from Nigel Farage and legal advice sent by Brexiteers to Mr Trump, the incoming president has been looking for a way to veto it without embarrassing Sir Keir.
Meanwhile, Mr Powell, who negotiated the plan to hand over the islands earlier this year, is to travel to Washington in a bid to persuade Mr Trump not to tear up the agreement.
With security concerns over the crucial joint UK/US base on Diego Garcia, there are also fears the deal will allow China access to the islands to build their own rival base.
Mr Trump’s pick for secretary of state, Marco Rubio, warned in October that the agreement posed “a serious threat” to US national security by ceding the islands to a country allied with China.
Stephen Doughty, the minister for North America, said earlier this month that Mr Trump’s team would be briefed on the details of the deal to “allay any concerns”.
The Independent understands that Mr Trump’s transition team has requested legal advice from the Pentagon over the agreement.
Mr Farage warned the next president’s team viewed the deal with “outright hostility” and would try to challenge it, telling MPs: “Diego Garcia was described to me by a senior Trump adviser as the most important island on the planet as far as America was concerned.”
The issue dates back to 1968, after which Mauritius argues it was forced to give up the Chagos Islands in return for independence from Britain. They had been the administrative centre for the islands in the British empire even though they are more than 1,000 miles away.
Thousands of people were forcibly displaced from their homes in the 1960s and 1970s in a scandal widely condemned as shameful.
