By Muvija M
LONDON (Reuters) -Britain was temporarily blocked from concluding a deal on the Chagos Islands with Mauritius on Thursday after an eleventh-hour injunction by London’s High Court, postponing an agreement aimed at securing the future of the U.S.-UK Diego Garcia air base.
Lawyers representing a British national born in the Chagos Islands argued the deal should be blocked pending a full legal challenge, as they sought to uphold an eleventh-hour injunction postponing the agreement.
Britain had been set to sign the multi-billion dollar deal to cede sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius on Thursday, aimed at securing the future of the U.S.-UK Diego Garcia air base.
But in the early hours an injunction was granted by the High Court, forcing the government to abandon the announcement and prompting an emergency court hearing.
The deal, the details of which were first announced in October, would allow Britain to retain control of the strategically important base on Diego Garcia, the largest island of the archipelago in the Indian Ocean, under a 99-year lease.
The injunction was granted following action by Bertrice Pompe, a British national who was born in Diego Garcia and has criticised the deal for excluding Chagossians. Her lawyer Philip Rule said the injunction should continue until their challenge to the proposed deal was heard.
Lawyers for the British government, however, say the case is hopeless as foreign policy issues such as signing international treaties are a matter for ministers, not courts, to decide.
Britain’s Foreign Office said in court filings opposing the interim injunction that there was “a narrow window of time for the treaty to be signed” on Thursday before a parliamentary break.
Blocking the deal would also “be damaging to relations especially with the USA with whom the UK shares the strategically important defence facility on Diego Garcia”, the lawyers added.
DECADES OF LEGAL CASES
Thursday’s hearing is the latest legal action in the last two decades brought by members of the wider Chagossian diaspora, many of whom ended up in Britain after being forcibly removed from the Indian Ocean archipelago more than 50 years ago.
They have said they cannot endorse an agreement they were not consulted on, while critics have also said the deal plays into the hands of China, which has close trade ties with Mauritius.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was due to join a virtual signing ceremony with representatives from the Mauritian government, the Telegraph newspaper reported earlier.
The British government said it would not comment on ongoing legal cases, but said the deal was the right thing to protect the British people and the country’s national security.
In 1965 Britain detached the Chagos Islands from Mauritius – a former colony that became independent three years later – to create the British Indian Ocean Territory.
Under the planned 99-year agreement, Britain will pay Mauritius 3 billion pounds ($4 billion) to secure the future of Diego Garcia, U.S. State Department officials said before the injunction was granted.
The financial component includes 3 billion pounds to be paid by Britain to Mauritius over the 99-year term of the agreement, with an option for a 50-year extension and Britain maintaining the right of first refusal thereafter.
The base’s capabilities are extensive and strategically crucial. Recent operations launched from Diego Garcia include bombing strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen (2024-2025), humanitarian aid deployments to Gaza, and further back, attacks against Taliban and al-Qaeda targets in Afghanistan in 2001.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who took office in November, indicated his backing for the deal in February after meeting Starmer in Washington, following some uncertainty over his administration’s support. Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden had backed the agreement.
(Reporting by Muvija M, Michael Holden and Sam Tobin in London and Mike Stone in Washington; Editing by William Schomberg, Elizabeth Piper and Hugh Lawson)
