Trump has legal power to veto Chagos deal, UK Government admits

Labour has admitted that the Government’s Chagos deal will collapse if Donald Trump refuses to rip up a 60-year-old treaty.

Sir Keir Starmer’s surrender of the British island territory was thrown into chaos on Friday night after the Conservatives warned it could violate a US-UK treaty from 1966.

This forced the ministers to withdraw the bill which was expected to be debated in the House of Lords on Monday, while government lawyers examined the significance of the historic legislation.

The Telegraph can reveal that in a letter sent late on Friday evening, the Government conceded that it would not be possible for the Chagos deal to be ratified without the US agreeing to overhaul its 1966 defence deal with Britain.

The US president turned against the Chagos agreement on Tuesday, saying that Britain’s plan to hand the Indian Ocean territory to Mauritius, an ally of China, was “an act of great stupidity”.

White House officials are now lobbying Mr Trump to stop the Chagos deal by refusing to overhaul a 1966 treaty between the UK and the US. The agreement asserts Britain’s sovereignty over the islands and is meant to ensure they remain available to both sides for defence purposes.

Sources with knowledge of the discussions said the White House was likely “not to accept Mauritius sovereignty” amid a mounting backlash over the deal.

Under the proposed arrangement, Britain would hand over the archipelago to Mauritius and lease back the Diego Garcia military base, a facility built in the 1970s that has been used by British and American forces.

Meanwhile the campaigner Misley Mandarin, the first minister of the newly-established Chagossian government-in-exile, is planning to fly to the US on Sunday to urge Mr Trump to halt the so-called Chagos surrender. He plans to lobby Mr Trump by arguing that transferring sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius would pose a “danger to America’s security”.

It is the same argument made to the US president by nine former army, navy and intelligence leaders last week, who said the deal would make the Diego Garcia airbase “inherently less secure”.

Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, said the Conservatives had been engaged in “quiet diplomacy” with the Republicans, including speaking to officials at the American embassy to “flag how this deal is a risk to national security”.

She told The Telegraph: “We’ve had so many U-turns – the grooming gangs inquiry, winter fuel payments, family farm tax, digital ID – and now Chagos, which is honestly the biggest one. That’s £35bn we are saving the taxpayer. Let’s be clear, what Labour is trying to do is hand over strategic British territory to Mauritius – a country that is aligned with China.”

On Friday evening, Lord Callanan, the shadow Foreign Office spokesman in the House of Lords, wrote to Baroness Chapman, the Africa minister, asking whether the Chagos deal would be legal if the 1966 treaty remained unchanged.

Later that night, Lady Chapman replied, confirming that it would not be possible for the Chagos deal to be ratified “without the relevant domestic law and international arrangements in place”.

The Tories described the revelation as “massively embarrassing” for Sir Keir and a “disaster” for the Government.

“This says that Starmer has not sorted out the international agreements that he needs to get in place to get the Chagos deal over the line. Everyone says he is this great international player – but he has failed to get the necessary agreement over the line,” a source said.

“It is just incompetence, sheer incompetence. They have known about it for ages and have allowed it to drag on. The fact is that we are beholden to the US.”

Meanwhile Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, is understood to have spoken to Mike Johnson, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, and Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, in the past week to “hammer the message home” about the dangers of the Chagos bill.

“He explained how this could stop US nuclear submarines being based in Diego Garcia and the Americans were shocked and felt lied to by Labour,” a source close to Mr Farage said.

On Saturday Downing Street sources insisted that the bill wouls be rescheduled, saying it is “all in line with international law”.

They blamed the Tories for “playing parliamentary games” by laying a “fatal motion” in the Lords, meaning they were left with no choice but to pause the bill.

Whitehall sources told the Telegraph that British and US officials were “continuing to work together to ensure necessary arrangements in place for the future operation of the base”.

A government spokesman said: “The Government remains fully committed to the deal to secure the joint UK-US base on Diego Garcia, which is vital for our national security.

“This is irresponsible and reckless behaviour by peers, whose role is to check legislation, not interfere with our national security priorities.”

[Source: Daily Telegraph]