The future of the Chagos Islands and a secretive UK/US airbase is set to be an early flashpoint between Donald Trump and Sir Keir Starmer as the president-elect seeks to veto the controversial deal signed off by the prime minister and endorsed by Joe Biden, it can be revealed.
The Independent understands that Mr Trump’s transition team has requested legal advice from the Pentagon over the agreement that handed the Chagos Islands, which is under British control, to Mauritius.
US government sources say Mr Trump is looking to veto the deal, which is set to come into force after his inauguration in January, over global security fears.
It comes after The Independent revealed how allies of Nigel Farage had pushed Mr Trump’s team to investigate the consequences of the Chagos Islands deal ahead of last week’s US election.
Ahead of an urgent question in the Commons today, Mr Farage told The Independent that Mr Trump would be attempting to veto the deal. He said: “It’s happening!”
The row comes as part of an unfurling nightmare across the Atlantic for Sir Keir as the president-elect Trump appoints hardliners such as Marco Rubio as secretary of state and, in a surprise move, Fox News presenter Pete Hegseth as defense secretary. Both men have criticised the Chagos plan and want to end support for Ukraine.
Meanwhile, X owner Elon Musk, who spent the summer attacking the prime minister and Labour, is to be an adviser for the adminstration.
Starmer’s announcement of a defence deal with Romania on Wednesday following one with Germany and a proposed one with Poland appeared to be part of a strategy to counter balance a hostile rightwing White House across the Atlantic.
The Chagos Islands, part of the British Indian Ocean Territory, are seen as strategically important in southeast Asia. America uses the base on the atoll of Diego Garcia for ships and long-range bombers.
The controversy adds to tensions between Sir Keir’s government and Mr Trump’s team over issues including continued support for Ukraine, tackling climate change and a row over alleged election interference in America by the Labour Party. Past tweets by foreign secretary David Lammy calling the president-elect a “neo-Nazi” have also caused issues.
A US government official source told The Independent: “Trump has received a UK-sourced briefing on Chagos and has asked the presidential transition team to work with the Pentagon to get legal advice. He has expressed a stance in principle to object to the deal if elected on the advice of the Department of Defence based on their global security posture.”
The deal with Mauritius is not due to come into place until next year but has been backed by the outgoing Joe Biden administration.
A source close to Mr Lammy pointed to support for the deal from President Biden’s defence secretary Lloyd J Austin, who said the deal would “safeguard the strategic security interests of the United Kingdom, Mauritius, and the United States, as well as our partners in the Indo-Pacific region into the next century”.
The UK advice given to Mr Trump was put together with the help of Brexiteer lawyer Martin Howe KC.
The legal note claimed that a decision by the International Court of Justice to support Mauritius’s claim to the Chagos Islands on which Mr Lammy based his handover decision is only “advisory”.
Mr Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz has been highly critical of the deal.
Recently, Mr Waltz said: “Should the UK cede control of the Chagos to Mauritius, I have no doubt that China will take advantage of the resulting vacuum.”
Meanwhile, Mr Trump’s nominee for secretary of state Mark Rubio described the deal as “concerning as it would provide an opportunity for communist China to gain valuable intelligence on our naval support facility in Mauritius”.
Speaking in response to an urgent question from Mr Farage, Europe minister Stephen Doughty said: “We would have not countenanced a deal which harmed our national security.”
He added that when the details are published, he is “confident” that the UK’s partners would agree with the UK government.
Mr Farage told the House: “I warned the foreign secretary [Mr Lammy] six weeks ago in this chamber that it was an enormous mistake to do this, given that we had a US presidential election coming up on 5 November.”
The Reform UK leader said: “I can assure you that having been in America last week, knowing the incoming defence secretary [Fox News host and army veteran Pete Hegseth], there is outright hostility to this deal.”
He added: “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.”
Conservative shadow foreign secretary Dame Priti Patel described the deal as “the wrong decision” with the world “in a more dangerous state than ever before”.
Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith urged for a new deal to allow the Chagosans to return and remain British citizens. He pointed out that the Mauritian government Labour made the deal with is now out of office.
“This was a deal with the wrong people at the wrong time for the wrong reasons,” he said.
Meabnwhile, president of the Conservative Friends of Overseas Territories, Lord Blencathra, said Labour’s Chagos Islands deal is “dead and buried” after recent elections in Mauritius and the US.
He said: “Labour needs to read the room and ditch its disastrous surrender of the Chagos Islands given the results of elections in both Mauritius and the US. The Chagos deal is as good as dead. Labour now needs to perform the last rites and put it out of its sorry existence.
“I have today written to the incoming US National Security Advisor and Marco Rubio, likely to be the next US Secretary of State, who have already both raised their concerns, urging them to make clear to Labour that the incoming US government does not support the surrender of the Chagos Islands.”
