Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 9th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard]

The legal analysis that this Government have received, and indeed that the last Government received, showed that the position of UK sovereignty over the Diego Garcia military base was putting the base’s operation at risk. The reason why the last Government began the negotiations was to secure the continuing operation of the base, and it is the reason why we are doing so. Securing the future operation of that base is the primary concern of this Government. Indeed, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey), it was the primary concern of the last Government as well. That is what this deal secures, and it is really important that that is understood clearly: the base is what matters in relation to its continuing operation, and that is what this deal secures.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

Will the Minister give way?

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[Luke Pollard]

I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman first and then come to the hon. Gentleman.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Could I ask the Minister to return to the human cost and the human story? In 1968, the Chagossians first began to be removed from Diego Garcia and the archipelago. Their treatment was abominable and disgusting by any stretch of the imagination. It needs a bit more than a statement of regret; it needs a full-hearted apology to all the Chagossian people for the way they were treated.

Since there is a legal judgment that the Chagos islands in their entirety, including the archipelago and Diego Garcia, should return to Mauritius, is this treaty not just completing work that was not properly done in the 1960s? Would the Minister confirm that the question of returning to live on the outer islands is agreed, but be clearer about the Chagos islanders who want to return to Diego Garcia, either to visit or to reside, in the future? History has treated them badly, and that needs to put it right.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I always respect the right hon. Gentleman, and I could put him down to speak because of his knowledge—if he wants me to, I can certainly add him to the list—but it would be better if we had shorter interventions.

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[Luke Pollard]

That is precisely why my FCDO colleagues are working very closely with Mauritius to ensure that the money that is included in the treaty, and the obligations that both the UK and Mauritius sign up to in the treaty, are fully delivered so that the Chagossians receive what this treaty says they should receive. That is a really important part of the treaty.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Have the meetings undertaken by the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), included all the Chagossian groups, including the Chagos Refugees Group, based in Mauritius?

[Luke Pollard]

The Minister of State has met a full range of groups, including the group mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman.

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[Peter Lamb]

It is incredibly unfortunate that the Chagossians have not been given that opportunity—that is my view. Had we given them that opportunity, whatever the outcome, I would have had no problem honouring that because we are talking about their land; it is not our land.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The hon. Member is speaking very well on behalf of his constituents. He will acknowledge that the argument for Chagossians having a right of nationality and abode in Britain was hard fought by many of the Chagossians, and some of us who were here at the time were pleased to support them in that. Yes, there are differences of opinion among Chagossians, including the Chagos refugee association, which, broadly speaking, supports this treaty, but does he not think that it is time to bring all the communities together and recognise that they have achieved an enormous amount in gaining the right of return and the right of residence, at least on the archipelago?

[Peter Lamb]

There is an enormous challenge, as I am sure the right hon. Member is aware of from his many years working with the group, in the number of disparate voices. Crawley borough council had taken it on itself to work with the different community groups, helping them to come together and form a coherent voice, out of the belief that they will only ever secure what they are all seeking by having one coherent, democratic voice for the community. Unfortunately, the deal emerged during the course of that process so there has not been that opportunity, and its timing has, to an extent, driven a rift through that community.

I am not naive; I am certain that the Bill will proceed today, so let me turn to the question, “What next?” Although mention of the Chagossians is made in the wording of the deal, I remain concerned, as other Members have alluded to, that there are gaps that leave the Chagossian people at risk. While there is the option for Chagossians to be allowed by the Mauritian Government to return to the islands, there is no requirement in the deal that that happens. There is no guarantee that any Chagossian who does return to the archipelago will not face restrictions that prevent permanent habitation, even at a subsistence level of economic activity. There is no guarantee at this time that the trust fund that is being created will be in the control of the Chagossians and used exclusively to address the consequences of their forcible removal from the islands. There is no guarantee that returning Chagossians will not face a 10-year prison sentence for questioning Mauritian territorial integrity through taking on British citizenship.

I know that many remain upset that Diego Garcia remains off limits for permanent habitation, with a view that some creativity could be used to enable rehabilitation without affecting security, particularly given the prolonged period in which asylum seekers have been present on that island. I say all this because I want to urge Ministers to continue to engage on these matters with the Mauritian Government to give the Chagossians certainty over their place in this deal.

Closer to home, there are many challenges facing Chagossians who choose to exercise their right to UK citizenship. Chief among those problems, as with so many other issues, is housing. As part of our national housing strategy, we need to ensure that every UK citizen has access to good-quality housing, and that includes British Chagossians, who, by the legal complication of their citizenship, despite having lost their homes in Chagos, receive none of the support offered by relocation schemes to other groups. That creates enormous pressures on local authorities near airports and leaves many Chagossians living in dilapidated housing conditions, if they can find accommodation at all. With the second worst housing crisis in the country, the reality is that Crawley borough council cannot on its own owe the entire country’s housing duty to the Chagossian people; a national strategy is needed.

There are challenges around access to language training and support services, which often lead Chagossians to be highly reliant on other members of the community. I regret to say that for the enormous amounts of goodwill and charity on the part of that community towards other members of it, we have had instances of that trust being abused in the form of fraud. We need a mechanism for qualifications issued in Mauritius to be recognised in the UK, and for children and young people to transition into UK educational systems—something that is complicated by the differences in term times.

Lastly, there is a desperate need for facilities for the Chagossians to preserve their unique, intangible cultural heritage, which sits at the heart of an individual’s identity and which forced deportations have to a large extent erased. With so few first-generation Chagossians left, if we do not act now, this is likely to be the last generation that sees its culture on the earth. I know that Foreign Office Ministers are meeting with Chagossian groups and have been working to get funding moving again. I am hopeful that these meetings will continue and that progress can be made on these and other challenges.

I say to all Members in the House today that this House has done enormous harm to the Chagossian people, all the way from their enslavement to the present day. I believe that handing these islands to Mauritius without their consent risks making some of that harm permanent. Nevertheless, it is within the Government’s power to address many of the consequences of forcible deportation so long ago. Regardless of the outcome of today’s vote, I beg Ministers to let this be the start and not the end of the process of making things right.

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[Paul Holmes]

Yes, I absolutely can. I am not a lawyer, but I would say it is crystal clear in the sentence the hon. Gentleman has just read: “mutually beneficial”. What the democratically elected Government of the day decided, through Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, who I said—if the hon. Gentleman was in the debate earlier, he would have heard it—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman says he has other things to do, Madam Deputy Speaker. I suggest that if he thinks this is very important, he should have been here for the whole debate and not just intervene on a debate that I think is about national security. I repeat the point to him: the Foreign Secretary at the time ended the negotiations because, as the then Prime Minister said, “mutually beneficial” was deemed not to have been the case.

I want to touch briefly on the arguments put forward by the Government about hiding behind international law. I cannot do it justice like my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam, but it is clear that the Government keep hiding behind judgments that they have to follow. I remind the Minister again that it is not a binding judgment. If the Government had chosen to challenge that non-binding judgment, he would have had the support of those of us on the Opposition Benches. The Government decided not to do that and have accepted a non-binding judgment and fast-tracked the capitulation and surrender of a British overseas territory for the first time in a long time. The Minister could have challenged that decision, because it was non-binding. I shall let the record stand with the speech by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam, who went through the numerous international structures that this Government have signed up to and set out how we did not have to follow that.

Lastly, clause 2 is absolutely disastrous. The hon. Member for Crawley (Peter Lamb) spoke of the historical context here. I congratulate and commend the hon. Gentleman for his speech; he is an incredibly brave and principled man who stands up for his constituents. Under clause 2, this Government have decided unilaterally to recognise that Mauritius has sovereignty over the Chagos islands. I remind the House and the Government that Mauritius has never in the historical context of the Chagos islands had sovereignty, and that this Government have chosen to give sovereignty over the islands to a country that has never had it.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Paul Holmes]

I will in a second.

Some, including the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), have said that we want to “return” the islands. I say that is impossible, because it is not possible to return sovereignty to a country that never had sovereignty in the first place. This is a decision and a negotiation undertaken by this Government, and they should hang their heads in shame over the way they have done it.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The agreement that was reached between the British and Mauritian Governments in 1965 was to separate the Chagos islands from Mauritius. Decolonisation processes of the UN and all others have confirmed that it should never have happened, and that they should never have been separated. If they had never been separated, we would not even be having this debate today.

[Paul Holmes]

I disagree with the right hon. Gentleman, because it was clear in the negotiations that took place in the ’60s, when the United Kingdom paid Mauritius, that Mauritius actively accepted that it had no sovereignty claim over the islands, and that stands in international agreements from times gone by.

This Bill is a bad deal. It is a bad deal for the United Kingdom and for our constituents; and it is a bad deal because of the money that this Government have decided to spend, and because of their decision to tax people while spending £35 billion overseas. The Government have abandoned the usual norms of the traditional Governments of this country of standing up in a transparent way for the way we act internationally; they have decided to abdicate their responsibility in doing that.

This is a bad deal for this country. It has been welcomed by malign international partners, it has undermined our defence, and it will cost us billions. Above all, with this Bill, the Government have abandoned and avoided every scrutiny mechanism within the House of Commons that would enable hon. Members to challenge them and get the answers that this House quite rightly deserves—[Interruption.] Government Members say that we have the chance today, but I remind them that many, many Members have asked questions of Ministers about the legal position on refusing this, and Ministers have been unable and unwilling to provide answers in the context of the international law that we have spoken about to do that.

This is the day that the Labour Government showed the British people out there, as well as the Chagossians in the Public Gallery today, that they do not stand up for the people of this country. They did not stand up when we saw that international law might go against us. They chose to abandon their responsibilities to protect the people of this country and the military assets that this country has in the overseas territories.

I predict that, in the four years ahead, this £35 billion surrender treaty will come to haunt this Labour Government. I remind Government Members that after they have gone through the Lobby and voted for the Bill tonight—after they have read out their Labour party briefing saying that it is the right thing to do—they will have to knock on doors and explain how they gave £35 billion of taxpayers’ hard-earned money to a country that never had sovereignty over this British overseas territory. They should hang their heads in shame, and I think they will do so.

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[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

I am pleased to be able to say something in the debate. The points made about the history of this really need to be amplified a bit more. It was a disgraceful deal, done in 1965 by the then Labour Government, that created BIOT and led us on the pathway to expelling the Chagos islanders from both Diego Garcia and the wider archipelago. That was done when Mauritius was still a British colony, and the US was putting on a lot of pressure to get a base to fuel the Vietnam war. That was the context in which the deal was done.

The treatment of the Chagos islanders, which has been written about extensively by some brilliant writers, was unbelievably brutal. They were dragged out of their homes, put on boats, and sent to either Seychelles or Mauritius with no rights, no acknowledgment and no real support whatsoever. They lived for a long time in poverty in both those places. Former Members of the House who have sadly passed on did quite a lot to try to support them. The late Tam Dalyell, former MP for Linlithgow, went to Mauritius to meet Len Williams, the new governor-general at the time, and asked why people were sleeping on the streets of Port Louis. He was told, and from that point, he took up the cause of the Chagos islanders, because he thought they had been disgracefully treated. The late Robin Cook also took the matter up, both at the time and much later, when he became Foreign Secretary. We should pay tribute to them for what they tried to do.

The reality is that it was the Chagos islanders themselves who managed to get some decency and recognition. Olivier Bancoult, who has become a great friend of mine, first wrote to me in, I think, 1988. It was a beautiful handwritten letter, saying, “Dear Mr Corbyn, could you do anything to help the Chagos islanders?” We kept in touch. Indeed, I have met him many times since, including recently at the launch of his book.

The Chagos Refugees Group was founded, and it operated from Olivier Bancoult’s house. It made demands on the Mauritian Government, demands on the British Government and enormous demands on somebody who later became the British high commissioner to Mauritius, namely David Snoxell. He and Olivier Bancoult did not always get along. The latter’s pressure on David Snoxell was enormous; he once went to the extent of locking him in his office until they had a proper meeting. Olivier Bancoult is a feisty guy, and the group are feisty people. We should recognise that the group’s determination brought about compensation and a litany of court cases all over the country and the world. I have been to many of the hearings; I have heard arguments made in the decolonisation committee and at the UN Human Rights Council, and at a whole series of court processes in Britain to try to get compensation and recognition of the rights of the Chagos islanders.

Today, we are dealing with the consequences of the unbelievable heroism of the Chagossian people, who have been seeking recognition and justice. I regret that there are now differences within the Chagossian community. Tam Dalyell and I strongly supported the move to get a right to British nationality for Chagos islanders, and to amend the relevant nationality Act. That was eventually achieved, and that is how, I am pleased to say, they now have unfettered access to this country. I am also pleased that the treaty continues to include that unfettered access. I hope that the Minister, when he comes to reply, can explain what discussions he has had with all the elements of the Chagossian community. The last thing we want to see is division in a community that has suffered so much, and deserves so much decency and recognition.

If the Chagos islands in their entirety are not passed over to Mauritius and Mauritian sovereignty, there are two consequences. First, there will be even greater dishonesty than we thought there was in 1975, and secondly, Britain will be in breach of an ICJ judgment. If that is what people want—if that is what Conservative and Reform Members want—so be it, but they would be acting illegally by hanging on to the islands. BIOT will go, and there will be Mauritian sovereignty over the whole area.

I supported the principles behind the marine protection zone, although I did not support the no-take element that was included at the beginning. I wanted Chagos islanders to be able to return to the archipelago, and to undertake sustainable fishing and so on. I am assured that the Mauritian Government support and recognise the need to preserve the pristine beauty of the ocean around there. I am less convinced that the military and the United States forces are equally committed to the preservation of the natural world and the environment. The record is not good—not perfect. I hope that the Minister, when he comes to reply, can assure us that there will be proper inspection, not just of the outer islands, but of the seas and the land of Diego Garcia.

It is wrong that the islanders were removed. It is right that they have an opportunity to return, which is what they have always campaigned for. I find it unfortunate beyond belief that they will only be allowed to visit Diego Garcia. Imagine if we could only visit the home where our parents lived, or the graves where many of our relatives had been buried. There is an emotional relationship there that will be broken by the refusal of the right of abode in future. I understood from previous discussions with the Minister and others that there could be a possibility of the return of a right of abode. I am not sure; maybe he can reply to that.

Am I happy about there being a huge military base on Diego Garcia? No. Am I happy about the rhetoric that has been used in this debate, which seems to be cranking up the idea of yet another cold war, when we should be looking for a world of peace, rather than one of war? I find that depressing, and not really fit for this debate.

There is a right of people who live under colonisation to achieve their independence. That was achieved by Mauritius, but it was thwarted in 1965. By agreeing now to return all the islands and the archipelago to Mauritius, we are completing a process that should have taken place in 1965, prior to Mauritius’s independence in 1968. Had that happened, and had there been no separation and creation of BIOT in 1965, we would not be having this debate today, because the issue would simply not have arisen.