Gavin Houlgate retweetledi
As Wes Streeting is claiming the Chagos deal is not dead, and the Foreign, Commonwealth
& Development Office is continuing to implement the treaty as if it has been ratified, it's time to repost the following.
1982,🏝️Project Chagos begins when Mauritius sets up a select committee to look into the potential vast mineral wealth in the Chagos Archipelago's seabed.
2003, leading international lawyer Sir Ian Brownlie is officially appointed advisor by Mauritius for Chagos.
2009, Brownlie leads a Mauritius delegation in bilateral talks at the Foreign Office in London.
2010, Philippe Sands QC becomes counsel to Mauritius for Chagos after Brownlie dies in a motor accident in Egypt.
2O13, Sands' good friend, Keir Starmer QC, visits Mauritius and discusses the future of the Chagos islands with prime minister Navin Ramgoolam. The meeting ends with the men in agreement.
2015, Ramgoolam is arrested on money-laundering charges.
The same year, Starmer is elected to Parliament for first time.
2019, Sands obtains an International Court of Justice ruling (advisory opinion only, and non-binding) that the Chagos islands should be given to Mauritius.
Sands uses the ICJ ruling as leverage in the following years in his efforts to persuade the Conservative government to give Chagos to Mauritius.
2020, Starmer becomes Labour Party leader.
2021, Sands receives Mauritius' top honour, The Most Distinguished Order of the Star and Key of the Indian Ocean.
2022, Sands makes an unauthorized entry into the Chagos Archipelago for a flag-raising ceremony. Sands tweets at the time, “It’s morning on Chagos, where the flag of Mauritius flies."
2023, Sands becomes Mauritius citizen, but retains his British and French citizenships.
🟥In November 2023 David Cameron takes over as Foreign Secretary from James Cleverly, and bins a deal saying, it's not in the national interest, as reported in Hansard.
2024, Starmer becomes UK Prime Minister in July, and overlooks his shadow Attorney General, Emily Thornberry, to appoint his old friend and fellow human-rights lawyer Richard Hermer. But he has to break with tradition by giving Hermer a peerage, so he can sit in the House Of Lords, and be part of the government.
In the early months of his premiership, Starmer makes the controversial former Downing Street Chief Of Staff for Tony Blair, Jonathan Powel, his special envoy for Chagos.
In early October 2024, just ten weeks after becoming PM, Keir Starmer agrees a deal with Mauritius, despite there having been no mention of Chagos during the election campaign, and the pledge in Labour's manifesto to protect the BOT.
Also in October 2024, Powell tells Times Radio in an interview, “These are very tiny islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean where no one actually goes. So I don’t think we should be too worried about losing that bit of territory. We’re probably losing more to tidal erosion in the East Coast than that.”
Powell fails to mention the territorial waters and marine protection zone of 64,000 square miles, and Mauritius getting full ownership of all the mineral rights for an area about the size of France
In November 2024, Starmer appoints Powell as his National Security Advisor.
In December 2024, Starmer makes yet another extremely controversial appointment in Peter "friend of Epstein" Mandelson as his US Ambassador.
Powell and Mandelson brief the White House over Chagos, and claim the UK has to give the archipelago to Mauritius because of international law. However, they assure the Americans that their military base on Diego Garcia is unaffected, as the UK has arranged a 99-year lease on the island.
Those assurances have now been proven to be worthless.
2025, In January Lord Hermer recuses himself from signing off on the Chagos deal. The AG's office refuse to give details of why.
In late February 2025, Mauritius’ former Prime Minister, Pravind Jugnauth, who was in office when Starmer became PM, and was heavily involved in discussions about the Chagos deal before being replaced by Navin Ramgoolam in November, was arrested on money laundering charges after Mauritius' anti-corruption agency said it had seized suitcases of cash and luxury watches in raids on 10 locations, including Jugnauth’s home.
In August 2025, Starmer is referred to the statistics' watchdog for misleading claims over the cost of the Chagos deal.
Many other claims are made during the year that Starmer had repeatedly "lied" about the true costs of the deal. There are even accusations that Starmer ordered his officials to announce misleadingly low figures.
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