Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Lord Morrow Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 4th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords, the people of Northern Ireland have a particular interest in the Chagos islands, because the United Kingdom took on responsibility for the islands and, crucially, a duty of care for the Chagossian people in 1814, when the UK was represented by one of the most successful Foreign Secretaries, Viscount Castlereagh. He went on to play a pivotal role in laying the foundation for peace in Europe for nearly 100 years through the Congress of Vienna the following year, the success of which stands in sharp contrast to the shortcomings of Versailles, 160 years later. His family home, Mount Stewart, in Northern Ireland, is now owned by the National Trust and contains the state chairs from the Congress of Vienna, which were donated to Castlereagh after the conclusion of the congress, in recognition of the crucial contribution that he made to proceedings.

In my comments today, I want to reflect on the serious human rights failures attending the Bill before us and the treaty to which it relates. The argument for the Bill and treaty is that, on 8 November 1965, the UK Government, with the consent of the Mauritian Council of Ministers, removed the Chagos Islands and made them into a separate colony, the British Indian Overseas Territory, in order to meet the American request for a military base on the islands. This means that Mauritius gained independence in 1968 without the Chagos Islands

The argument is that this was contrary to UN Resolution 1514 on decolonisation, because it involved the colonial power, the UK, changing the territorial integrity of the colony before decolonisation. In this context it is said that, notwithstanding that the Mauritian Council of Ministers consented to the separation of the Chagos Islands in 1965, this decision was not valid because the United Kingdom acted contrary to international law in seeking this separation, and therefore since 1968, the decolonisation of Mauritius has been only partially secured and will not be fully secured until the islands are returned to Mauritius. This argument, however, depends on abstracting a concern for the territorial integrity of the 1965 colony, frozen in time, apart from all other considerations of international law.

The distance from the island of Mauritius to the Chagos Islands is a huge 1,339 miles—the distance from here to north Africa. Not surprisingly, the people are of a different ethnic group and religion. Thus, in international law regarding decolonisation, rather than self-determination being subject to territorial integrity, territorial integrity is very much subject to self-determination.

In the second instance, turning to the events of 1968 to 1973, the delivery of self-determination was undermined from 1968 because, after creating the British Indian Ocean Territory, the UK Government embarked on one of the most shameful episodes in our history, as has already been mentioned in your Lordships’ House today. We would like to think that the events of 1968 to 1973 took place in an earlier age—between 1768 and 1773, or perhaps between 1868 and 1873—but they did not. They happened within my lifetime and those of many noble Lords, and involved the forced removal of the Chagossian people not just from their homes but from their islands.

In this context, the Government’s argument is that we can somehow forget about the self-determination of the people of the islands and just revert to the pre-8 November 1965 territorial integrity, and so effectively reassert the validity of what happened between 1968 and 1973. Rather than alleviating our national shame and moral responsibility, the Government’s decision to use the fact that we forcibly removed the Chagossians from their homeland as an excuse for denying them self-determination makes our moral failure much worse. It involves our acting as if the Chagossians do not exist.

The Government might seek to argue that their position is not that the Chagossians do not exist but that they are properly conceived of as Mauritians for two reasons. First, because pre-8 November 1965 they lived in the colony of Mauritius, the boundaries of which the Government are seeking to restore; and secondly, because some Chagossians live in Mauritius.

This argument, however, is completely unsustainable. First, most Chagossians do not live in Mauritius and those who do have been leaving in large numbers. Secondly, those who remain in Mauritius are there only because they were forcibly removed to Mauritius, not because they wanted to go there. We need to give some thought to that. Thirdly, the relationship between the Chagossians and Mauritians is such that it is plainly very difficult, if not impossible, for Chagossians to place themselves in the identity of Mauritian, because the Mauritians played a crucial role in facilitating what amounted to an existential attack on the Chagossians: their forced removal from the Chagos Islands in agreeing they would be moved to the island of Mauritius, 1,339 miles away.

The 1965 decision of the Mauritian Council of Ministers was not valid because it took place while Mauritius was a UK colony. How much more valid is any attempt to pretend that the decision of the Republic of Mauritius in 2025 can be regarded as a valid decision on the part of the Chagossians, who, unlike the Mauritian Council of Ministers in 1965, were not consulted?

Going forward, two things are absolutely clear. First, having taken advice, it would be perfectly possible to facilitate a robust and secure referendum of the Chagossians, who live principally in the UK, the Seychelles and Mauritius, to find out whether they self-determine that their islands—which, from this Saturday, will have been functionally separate from what has become the Republic of Mauritius for 60 years—should rejoin Mauritius or not. This is critically important because the informal referendum, facilitated by a BIOT citizens group which has engaged around 40% of Chagossians, has demonstrated that over 99% of them do not wish their islands to be given to the Mauritians. Secondly, according to the crucial KPMG report already mentioned in your Lordships’ House today, the resettlement of the Chagos Islands would be significantly cheaper than leasing just one of the islands, Diego Garcia, from Mauritius.

It was unconscionable that we should have taken the people of the Chagos Islands from their own lands, but now the UK Government’s Mauritius treaty and Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill are about to make things much worse. First, the Bill—the concluded passage of which facilitates the coming into force of the Mauritius treaty—seeks to give the Chagossians’ lands to what many of them regard as a foreign country, without their consent and without even requiring the Mauritians to resettle the Chagos Islands with the Chagossians. Secondly, the Government propose paying the Republic of Mauritius—which many Chagossians regard not only as a foreign country but a foreign country that has a history of discriminating against Chagossians—an extravagant amount of money for the use of just one island when that would pay for the resettlement of the Chagossians in their islands right now. Thirdly, the Government then hoist themselves by their own petard by engaging directly with the Chagossians, as distinct from the Mauritians, through Article 11 of the treaty, but then make no attempt to facilitate their self-determination.

There is more we would all like to say, but if the Government decide to proceed they will unwittingly make provision for an even more disturbing TV drama than “Mr Bates vs The Post Office”. I urge them to think about that. The British public expect more from their Government in 2025. I strongly advise them to step back from the brink.