The case for Sir Keir’s Chagos Treaty – The most definitive demolition yet published
Based on the official Hansard record, here is all you need to know about ‘the worst deal in history’
Montage © Facts4EU.Org 2025
Facts4EU presents a Stand for Our Sovereignty report which we worked on with them
What follows is the most definitive summary yet produced on the Government’s Treaty with Mauritius over the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean and the surrender of the sovereignty of the United Kingdom over it, including the strategically-vital military base of Diego Garcia. For the purposes of brevity, we have excluded the plight of the Chagossian people, which we have covered before and will do again.
This summary report is based on the five-hour debate which took place in the House of Commons on Tuesday 09 September 2025, during which the Government gave its reasons for the necessity of its Treaty with Mauritius and in which opposing Members argued against each and every one.
Based on the facts, this report demolishes the Government’s case in its entirety
The Stand for Our Sovereignty (SOS) team gratefully acknowledges the assistance and advice of Facts4EU, The Campaign for an Independent Britain (CIBUK), the UK Fisheries Campaign, and a number of the country’s most respected senior lawyers and politicians.
The Government’s case ‘in a nutshell’
The Government’s case is that the existence of the UK’s base at Diego Garcia is under threat of legal action “within weeks” and that:
“A binding judgment against the UK seemed inevitable.”
- David Lammy, then Foreign Secretary, House of Commons, 07 Oct 2024
This would make the base “inoperable”, so a Treaty has been signed which guarantees the use of the base for a further 99 years, unhindered, after which it can be renewed. Although signed, the Treaty now requires ratification by Parliament.
The Opposition’s case ‘in a nutshell’
The Official Opposition say the Government has produced no evidence to substantiate its claim, or where they have it is erroneous. There have been no legally binding judgments against the UK and nor are there likely to be. The deal involves the transfer of £35 billion to the government of Mauritius, an ally of China, Russia and Iran. The costs have been wildly understated by the Government.
“In the mid-1960s we paid Mauritius for the freehold and to cede all future claims over sovereignty. This new leasehold deal is the worst in history and Reform will rip it up.”
- Richard Tice MP, Deputy Leader, Reform UK, speaking to Stand for Our Sovereignty, 10 Sept 2025
The conditions include notification to the Mauritian government of military actions, and approvals needed for the construction of facilities. Mauritius is party to an African nuclear treaty forbidding the presence of nuclear weapons. At the end of the term – if the Mauritians do not renege on its terms before that – China or Russia would be able to outbid the UK and take control of the islands and the base.
A democratic desert: Once passed, Article V of the Bill allows the Government to change the terms at will, without recourse to Parliament.
Why should you care about an island so far away?
The importance of the base cannot be overstated. The joint UK-US base on Diego Garcia has played a vital role in defending the UK and its allies for over 50 years. The base plays a key role in operations that support UK forces and our allies across the Middle East, east Africa and south Asia. Its deep-water port, airfield, and advanced communications and surveillance capabilities, give the UK and our allies crucial strategic capabilities, which have played a key role in missions to disrupt high-value terrorists, including Islamic State threats to the United Kingdom.
These are not our words. They are produced verbatim from the Hansard record of the Government Minister, Luke Pollard, as he set out the reasons for the Government’s Treaty on Tuesday.
The Minister continued on the legal necessity for action
“But the base on Diego Garcia was under threat. Had we not signed the treaty, we could have faced further legal rulings against us within weeks, because the negotiations begun by the Conservatives had been stayed. Further legal rulings might have included arbitrary proceedings against the UK under annex 7 of the UN convention on the law of the sea, known as UNCLOS.”
“A judgment from such a tribunal would be legally binding on the UK. It would impact on our ability to protect the electromagnetic spectrum from interference, and impair our ability to ensure access to the base by air and sea, to patrol the maritime area around the base and to support the base’s critical national security functions.”
“Courts and international bodies were already making decisions that undermined our position. Others would have followed suit, taking us down a path towards making the base inoperable. This Government will not allow that to happen.”
The reasons why this Treaty must not proceed
The whole legal justification is built on sand
Legal summary: “It is not just that the Government are not answering the questions; it is that when they do answer the questions, they undermine their own argument. It is worse than we thought. We are not getting clarity from the Government about what would be the legal judgment that they themselves have relied on as almost the entire basis for their actions, and this really matters.” – Sir Jeremy Wright MP, former Attorney General.
The Government have cited four sources of legal cases against the UK: UNCLOS (law of the sea), the ICJ (International Court of Justice), ITU (use of radio spectrum), and the UN generally. In none of these is a binding judgment against the UK justified or possible.
1.1 UNCLOS – “…article 298(1)(a) and (b) give us specific exemptions from UNCLOS judgments across all those areas. That is relevant to the UK in ‘disputes concerning military activities…by government vessels and aircraft…in non-commercial service, and disputes concerning law enforcement activities’” – Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP.
1.2 ICJ – The International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion on sovereignty over the Chagos Islands and Diego Garcia. On 22 February 2017 the UK was exempted from “any compulsory jurisdiction in relation to any dispute with a Government of any other country which is or has been a Member of the Commonwealth. That involves and includes Mauritius, so any dispute with Mauritius before the ICJ could not result in a binding judgment against the United Kingdom. That point has been put to Ministers and, as far as I know, they have not dissented from that analysis.” - Sir Jeremy Wright, Attorney General at the time.
1.3 ITU – The International Telecommunications Union cannot make any binding judgements against the UK because the spectrum decisions are down to individual countries. “Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware of the written answer from the Government on 7 February this year: ‘Individual countries, not the ITU, make their own sovereign spectrum assignments in accordance with the Radio Regulations. The ITU has no legal authority over these assignments regardless of the country’s civilian or military classification of spectrum’?” - Sir John Whittingdale MP.
1.4 The UN generally – The Government has only vaguely mentioned this in passing but we will deal with it. With the majority of countries being smaller and poorer than the UK and other western countries such as the U.S. and many of those of the EU, votes routinely go in favour of a smaller country such as Mauritius. These are usually ignored and in any event the UK is a one of the P5 permanent members of the Security Council and can and does use its absolute veto.
1.5 ‘Finally, a cascade’ – A central plank of the Government’s case is that there would somehow be a cascade of binding legal judgments against the UK, stemming from the non-binding judgment of the ICJ. It is self-evident that any judgment from a different international body relying on the non-binding ICJ judgment would have no basis in law.
“The Government say they abide by the law. Given the opt-out that we had, the original judgment was specifically not found in law, because we did not allow the ICJ to rule on Commonwealth issues. The question is a matter of law, so if the Minister is suggesting to the House that other actions would have taken place, they would the above have been unlawful. In what world was it necessary to block off those by assuming that this was law? It was not lawful.”
- The Rt Hon Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP, former Leader, Conservative Party, 09 Sept 2025
Despite continual requests, the Government has been unable to cite one single example of a binding judgement against the UK, or the realistic possibility of one. Nevertheless, it has been making the claim since last year that the UK is under imminent threat “within weeks”. This is simply not the case.
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Not even a ‘Hail Mary pass’ can save the Government’s case
For completeness we would add that on occasions when its back is against the wall the Government has intimated that it cannot divulge everything due to reasons of security. Unfortunately for them, that old chestnut will not work. Parliament has a body called ‘The Intelligence and Security Committee’ whose purpose is to hear such private details. This is the one Committee to which the Government has failed to give evidence.
Given that the Government has rested its case on the threat of “further legal rulings against us within weeks”, and this has proven to be false, the Government’s justification for its Treaty has been unequivocally destroyed. If the Government insists on proceeding, which it will, it does so for ideological reasons, at enormous cost to the taxpayer and at equally enormous cost to the security of the country.
Observations
The debate began at 1.26pm on Tuesday 09 September 2025 and the first Division took place at 6.42pm. In preparing the above, the Stand for Our Sovereignty team read all 51,000 words of the official Hansard transcript.
It had originally been our intention to include many of the other arguments against this Treaty which were made on Tuesday in the House of Commons. During the course of précising more than five hours of debate into a report of readable length, it soon became apparent that these important issues would have to form part of a third report.
The subjects for Part III include:
- The exorbitant costs – Who is right and how much? £3.5bn, £10bn, £35bn? Even £47bn?
- On transparency and the Democratic Deficit – the ‘Killer Clause V’ you will not believe
- On the implications for British sovereignty generally
- On operational interference in military usage
- On China, Russia and Iran – and on our allies, especially Trump’s USA
- On what happens after 99 years
Does the UK need a members’ organisation like Stand for Our Sovereignty?
We know that a substantial proportion of the public are now up in arms about a whole range of attacks on our sovereignty, the majority of which have all come in the last year from this Government.
If you are in that ‘silent majority’, becoming increasingly more worried about everything from uncontrolled mass immigration, to the hikes in your energy bills due to Net Zero, to the new increases in food costs coming from the re-alignment with the EU preventing us from buying cheaper imports from around the World, (oh yes, that’s coming), to the destruction of our traditional farming and fishing sectors, to the appalling Big Brother policing and controls on freedom of expression, to Councils spending more on ‘Diversity Training’ than on fixing potholes, to… well, we’re sure you could add some. If you are feeling like us, then you have a choice.
You could post on X.com or Facebook about it, or you could join us, the Stand for Our Sovereignty campaign, and collectively make a real difference in Westminster by virtue of our sheer numbers. We have cross-party political support, we have a team of some of the best legal minds in the country advising us, and we have excellent media contacts. Coordinating all of this we also have a small but energetic team with 10 years’ experience in fighting.
Along with many other things, we plan to put as many legal obstacles in the way of this Government’s proposed actions to surrender our sovereignty as possible. Sovereignty comes from the people and is expressed through our elected representatives in Parliament. Even political parties which appear to espouse ideas we believe in need some help and some extra support from time to time. Plus there are things we can do which they can’t, as a result of Electoral Commission rules they must obey.
We have no intention whatsoever of becoming a party. We DO intend to make a difference and ‘shift the dial, though! We would also like more volunteers to join our central team, and some volunteers around the country to set up small, local groups to share ideas over coffee mornings, etc, so we’ll need some local organisers – could that be you?
These days to be professional and effective takes a bit of money. We can raise enough if enough of you join as Sovereign Members. Our standard annual membership fee currently costs the equivalent of just 3p a day. Surely that’s worth it to see a real fight back to regain control of our country and its values? Then if you could afford a bit more, there are Silver and Gold Memberships, which give you added privileges. And if you can afford to give us a real boost and speed up our progress, you can always make an extra one-off donation!
Or you can do nothing. We will fold when our money runs out. And we will all just find ourselves with a country we don’t feel like calling home any more. Please don’t let that happen. We’re British. We don’t kneel. We don’t give in. Please join us now. Thank you.
The above is the appeal from Stand for Our Sovereignty, but of course Facts4EU (which did a lot of work on this to help the SOS team) needs your help too.
Please, please help us to carry on our vital work in defence of independence, sovereignty, democracy and freedom by donating today. Thank you.
[ Sources: House of Commons Hansard | UNCLOS Treaty | ICJ | ITU | Our legal advisors] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.
Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Thurs 11 Sept 2025
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