A House of Lords front bench has sought to use, for the first time ever, the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act, passed in 2010, to block a treaty. The ‘surrender” Chagos deal will give up British sovereignty over the Territory in the British Indian Ocean Territory, and see the UK pay Mauritius £30billion, possibly on some calculations £100billion, over 99 years.
The Lords motion cites concerns about the cost of the agreement, the absence of any legal requirement to conclude such an agreement, its impact on international security, the lack of any meaningful consultation of the Chagos people, and recognising the right of Chagos to be registered as British Overseas Territory citizens under the Nationality and Borders Act 2022. If successful, this fatal motion would halt the process of the legislation, and the Government would ordinarily have to start again.
Conservative peers have launched a last-ditch attempt to stop Sir Keir Starmer from giving the Chagos Islands to Mauritius following the treaty being signed by Sir Keir last month. Lord Callanan, the shadow Foreign Minister in the Lords, put forward a motion demanding that the Government “should not ratify the agreement”, citing cost and security concerns. In reality, this is a political stunt by the Tories as the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act simply allows a minister to override the Lords by making a statement in the Commons.
This follows an attempt to injunct the Government by Beatrice Pompe, a Chagossian in an pyjama innjunction later overturned the same day in High Court, allowing Sir Keir to sign the agreement and announce that a deal had been done.
Another challenge, also considered hopeless, is being made by Misley Mandarin, a British Chagossian, supported by the Great British PAC, a conservative movement headed by former Reform deputy leader Ben Habib, to take legal action against the Government which claims to have raised enough money to launch a review and cover legal fees, but is seeking another £20,000 to underwrite the costs of losing the case because “We were evicted from our homeland by a past Labour government. Now the current Labour Government is doing something even worse – stripping us of our right to self-determination.“