Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Debate between Paul Holmes and Jeremy Corbyn

2nd reading
Tuesday 9th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[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.