The UK government has insisted there is \u201cno pause\u201d in its plans to transfer control of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, despite a minister previously telling MPs that the legislative process was being paused while discussions continue with the United States.<\/p>\n
A government source said there has never been a fixed deadline for the legislation and that timings would be announced \u201cin the usual way.\u201d The clarification followed comments by Foreign Office Minister Hamish Falconer, who told the House of Commons that the process was being paused while talks take place with U.S. officials.<\/p>\n
The development comes after U.S. President Donald Trump urged Prime Minister Keir Starmer to abandon the agreement, despite previously indicating support for the treaty.<\/p>\n
Under the deal, the UK would cede sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius while paying an average of \u00a3101 million per year to lease back the joint UK-US military base on Diego Garcia, the largest island in the territory. The government is currently working to pass legislation that would ratify the agreement into UK law.<\/p>\n
Speaking in Parliament, Falconer said the United States had earlier supported the treaty but acknowledged that Trump\u2019s recent intervention was significant. He said the government is now directly addressing American concerns and would return the legislation to Parliament at an appropriate time.<\/p>\n
Mauritius\u2019s Attorney General Gavin Glover said he was not surprised by the delay, noting that there had been no discussions on the legislative process for several weeks. He stressed that the move appeared to be a pause in parliamentary procedure rather than a reversal of policy and confirmed he remained in close contact with the UK\u2019s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.<\/p>\n
Trump last week used his Truth Social platform to urge Starmer not to \u201cgive away Diego Garcia,\u201d describing the deal as harmful to a key U.S. ally. His comments came only a day after the U.S. State Department formally expressed support for the UK government\u2019s plan. Following Falconer\u2019s remarks, the State Department said it had nothing further to add.<\/p>\n
The Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill, which would enshrine the agreement into law, is currently in the House of Lords and nearing the final stages of its passage. A debate on the bill was removed from the schedule in January after Conservative peers, who oppose the deal, tabled an amendment calling for a pause due to changing geopolitical conditions.<\/p>\n
Foreign Office Minister Stephen Doughty defended the agreement and accused Conservative peers of attempting to derail the legislation through what he described as parliamentary stunts. Since January, the bill has not returned to the Lords\u2019 agenda, and no new date has been set for its next stage.<\/p>\n
Although reports suggested the legislation would be delayed, Justice Minister Alex Davies-Jones said it would return to the House of Lords as soon as parliamentary time allows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The UK government has insisted there is \u201cno pause\u201d in its plans to transfer control of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, despite a minister previously telling MPs that the legislative process was being paused while discussions continue with the United States. A government source said there has never been a fixed deadline for the legislation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123,"featured_media":2879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[113],"tags":[3672,14573,14574,14575,14576,14577,14578,14579,14580,14581,14582,14583],"class_list":["post-2471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-amat","tag-british-indian-ocean-territory","tag-chagos-islands-deal","tag-chagos-islands-legislation","tag-diego-garcia-military-base","tag-donald-trump-uk-relations","tag-geopolitics-uk-us-mauritius","tag-hamish-falconer-statement","tag-house-of-lords-bill","tag-keir-starmer-foreign-policy","tag-uk-mauritius-treaty","tag-us-uk-military-base"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swifteradio.com\/update\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swifteradio.com\/update\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swifteradio.com\/update\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swifteradio.com\/update\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/123"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swifteradio.com\/update\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/swifteradio.com\/update\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swifteradio.com\/update\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swifteradio.com\/update\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swifteradio.com\/update\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swifteradio.com\/update\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}