The future of the Chagos Islands does not belong to Keir Starmer to bargain away. Under international law it belongs to the Chagossians or to the British people — and both have rejected this surrender. Great British PAC Policy Director Andrew Hunt argues that the entire right must now close ranks to halt an illegal giveaway before it is sealed.
The stakes for our country and our allies could hardly be higher, and meeting them demands a united right.
That means the Conservatives and Reform UK must, when it counts, set aside ego and vanity and pull together for the good of the nation. The Chagos debacle is the ideal opportunity to prove it can be done.
Encouragingly, both camps have already delivered. Robert Jenrick's compelling video lays out exactly why the Chagos surrender amounts to nothing more than self-harming nonsense — a seven-minute takedown of Starmer's so-called deal. In Parliament, Reform have fiercely resisted this odious arrangement, and Richard Tice has this morning vowed to tear up any deal, stop the payments, and take back the islands.
On this, surely we can all agree: this time, the Tice is right.
And if there is agreement, then the next Starmer disaster can be stopped — but only by working together. All that Reform UK and the Conservatives need to do is set out a single, shared position against the Chagos surrender, grounded in international law.
Why the surrender breaks international law
International law recognises a small set of rules known as peremptory norms, or jus cogens. These are considered so fundamental that they override other forms of international law, including treaties.
Self-determination sits among those norms — the right of a territory's people to choose their own destiny. Put plainly, the future of the Chagos Islands is for either the Chagossians or the British people to decide. Both have made clear that they oppose the giveaway and that they were never properly consulted.
On that basis, the surrender can be argued to be illegal. The conclusion follows: Reform and the Conservatives should commit to tearing up the deal, halting every payment, and freezing Mauritius out economically — no visas, no travel, no trade, no remittances — and, as a last resort, retaking the islands by military force. In short, full restitution of the status quo.
Pair that joint commitment with the near-certainty that the next general election delivers a new government of the right — Conservative, Reform, or a coalition — and the Chagos deal is left in tatters.
Why the deal would collapse
Start with Washington. The United States has no appetite for an arrangement that pushes its military base into still deeper legal limbo, leaves it liable for the billions Britain would no longer pay, and risks military skirmishes around its airbase.
Mauritius, too, would have every reason to walk away. Britain is a vital economic partner for the small nation, and a UK freeze-out would tip it into financial crisis. Nor would Mauritius relish a military confrontation with a power like Britain.
That is precisely why so little is required: a clear, courageous and united refusal from the right to recognise the deal, and a pledge to retake the islands for Britain and the Chagossians.
So come on Nigel, come on Kemi — this is the moment to work together for the nation.