The Chagos Islands were first discovered by the Portuguese hence the names of the various islands. The first people to make use of the islands were the French when they created coconut oil plantations in the 1770s and imported slaves to do the work. In 1786 the islands were claimed by Britain and this was formalised in the 1814 Treaty of Paris when we took control. The slaves were not freed until the late 1830s and yes, we compensated the slave owners most of whom were absentee. Although administered from Mauritius, the Chagos were never part of Mauritius. There was no infrastructure on the Chagos to permit local administration. Now known as the British Indian Ocean Territory it will henceforth be referred to as BIOT.
In 1965 we paid Mauritius £3 million and they agreed they had no claim to the BIOT, they have since changed their minds. In 1966 we signed a deal with the USA allowing them the use of a base and stating that the islands would remain British sovereign territory. Between 1967 and 1973 many of the islanders were removed to Mauritius and some to the Seychelles so the military facility could be built. There have been many claims for compo and in 1982 we paid £4 million to the Chagossians via the Mauritius government. Needless to say, the Chagossians did not see one penny of this money, the politicians in Mauritius obviously have sticky fingers.
In 2005 Satan Blair commissioned KPMG to study how we could resettle the Chagossians in the BIOT.
The 100 page KPMG report on the BIOT was delivered in 2015, having taken ten years to complete. It is available on the parliament dot uk website and its full titles is Feasibility Study for the Resettlement of the British Indian Ocean Territory.
Without going into lots of detail three options were considered concerning resettlement bearing in mind that the start of the report says that 95% of Chagossians want to return. Option 1 was for 1,500 people, Number 2 was for 500 people and Number 3 was for 150 people.
The costs were …
- Option 1 £413.9 million over 6 years or £69 million per year
- Option 2 £106.9 million over 4 years or £26.7 million per year
- Option 3 £62.9 million over 3 years or £21 million per year
In 2015 we had a Tory gummint so CallMeDave did nothing about this and neither did Saggy wotsits nor the Fat Turk. For some reason Liz Truss and James Cleverley picked this up and started negotiations. Obviously NikNak wasn’t interested either and it was left to Messers Starmer, Hermer and Sands to get the ball rolling. In double quick time we were offering Mauritius untold billions to take it off our hands and it has gone downhill ever since.
Much of the cost in the KPMG report was to provide infrastructure for those resettling. It is difficult to see how the proposed few hundred million pounds have now jumped to billions.
Originally about one to two thousand people were expelled, current estimates are that there are now 10,000 of them. Most went to Mauritius and some went to the Seychelles. Mauritius seems to have a lot of pesky injuns who are renowned for their racist attitudes (see their caste system for details). The reports are that the Chagossians are treated like second class citizens and the money we paid to Mauritius for the suffering of the Chagossians did not reach them.
In more recent years some Chagossians have moved to Britain, mainly to Crawley and Hillingdon. As we all know they are where Gatwick and Heathrow airports are situated. Upon arrival they throw themselves on the mercy of the local authority. They have British passports but presumably not the right of abode. When you see demonstrations here with Chagossian flags, the demonstrators mostly come from these two areas.
Having gone full speed ahead, the Starmer regime was basking in the Donald’s initial approval of their deal. The Americans seemed to be indifferent but later reports are that they are incandescent with rage. Nigel Farage has indicated they were told a pack of lies about the deal and this is why they seemed unconcerned. With the latest batch of Epstein emails there are suspicions that the Prince of Darkness, while our US Ambassador, himself had something to do with pulling the wool over the Americans’ eyes. Reports are that the Donald was incredulous we were proposing to pay Mauritius to take them off our hands, after all he just got control of some of Greenland for $0 using hissy fits and threats of invasion.
The terms of Spanner’s hastily proposed inquiry into Mandelscum’s machinations specifically exclude his dealings as US Ambassador lending credibility that those dealings were even dodgier than what he got up to in Epstein’s various establishments. There is a lot to cover up when it comes to Peter.
The details of any negotiations are suitably vague but a deal was reached with the then Prime Minister of Mauritius who has since had his house raided, been arrested and lost the subsequent election and so is no longer Prime Minister. The new Prime Minister kicked off about the deal and presumably was offered various inducements so things settled down again.
The scandal concerning the former PM was enlightening. There were allegations of phone hacking. The raid on his house uncovered millions in cash, Rolex watches and blank British visas. He even shut the internet down before he was ousted. A man after our own dear leader’s heart.
Since then some fishing trawlers were seized in the BIOT, no fishing is allowed there. They were from Sri Lanka and contained state of the art Chinese built radar equipment.
Rodney Spanner first claimed the latest deal was in the region of £3.4 billion over 99 years but later estimates put the cost at £35 billion, including one from the Government’s own Actuary Department, and the taxpayers alliance say this will be more like £47 billion allowing for inflation but not allowing for Mauritius putting the squeeze on and demanding even more. The initial £3.4 billion cost mentioned by Spanner was based on us paying them £101 million a year for the lease on Diego Garcia.
The Chagos deal is a dog’s breakfast anyway. The only reference to Chagossians returning to their islands is that they are not allowed on Diego Garcia, where many came from, and any resettlement is down to the Mauritius government moving them to one or more of the other islands. The Chinese are gagging to build their own bases on some of the other islands from where they will easily be able to spy on what is happening on the Diego Garcia base. Little wonder the Donald is apoplectic and there were reports Marco Rubio is going to write a strongly worded letter to the UK government advising against any deal. Hopefully this puts the final nail in the coffin of this ridiculous deal.
The latest news is that the Donald has given the deal his blessing but this blessing is couched in so many ifs and buts that it scarcely qualifies as faint praise. Spanner has withdrawn the deal again and it seems the earliest it can get approval is later in February by which time the walking dead man may be gone. Later suggestions, especially from Senator Kennedy, that the USA buy the islands are not really gaining the traction they ought to. Instead of us paying the very corrupt Mauritius to take them off our hands we could actually make some money by selling them. Never here Keir is ignoring this option like the plague and this plays into my theory that he is on some kind of bung from somewhere.
Even later news indicates that the tiddlies have already chosen the island in the Chagos they want to lease and discussions are under way. I wonder if orange man bad has gotten wind of this yet.
© well_chuffed 2026
