British Indian Ocean Territory

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Seema Malhotra]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Given the security risk, this Government, like the Government before us, made the decision to negotiate with Mauritius to secure a deal to protect the base and the UK. Our agreement ensures full operational control of Diego Garcia; a 24 nautical mile buffer zone where nothing can be built or placed without UK consent; a rigorous process including joint decision making to prevent any activities on the wider islands—some over 100 nautical miles away—from disrupting base operations; full UK control over the presence of foreign security forces on the outer islands, whether civilian or military; and a binding obligation to ensure that the operation of the base is never undermined.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Seema Malhotra]

I will continue with my remarks for the moment. As I have said, we are confident that nothing in this treaty conflicts with our ability to uphold international law and continue to operate the base as we do today.

Moving on to the UK-US relationship, we have been clear that before the UK can ratify the treaty, we will need to do the following: pass primary and secondary legislation; update the UK-US exchange of notes; and put in place arrangements on the environment, maritime security and migration. This Government consider it our duty to protect the public. Therefore, it is our duty to pursue this agreement with clarity and resolve, and we will not put party politics ahead of national security, as we see the Opposition doing today.

We have made strong progress towards finalising an updated UK-US agreement and will reach an agreement on it before the agreement between the United Kingdom and Mauritius concerning the Chagos archipelago, including Diego Garcia, is ratified. These matters are still under negotiation, so it remains to be determined whether any updated agreement will be subject to ratification. We will keep Parliament informed about that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

What a pleasure it is to be called so soon, Madam Deputy Speaker; I am very grateful.

My goodness me! I do feel sorry for the Minister, being wheeled out to defend the indefensible. I have to say, the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), has done a Trojan piece of work on behalf of the Government, and it is only fair that he should be given the day off.

Every day is a school day when it comes to Chagos, is it not? We learn something new every day of the week, it seems. Perhaps the Government might like to reflect on whether, in that wonderful Keynesian way, when the facts change, we change our mind—apparently not. The facts have changed. The ground truth has certainly changed, not least the attitude of the United States; that is clear beyond peradventure. In February last year, the then Foreign Secretary said that without US agreement, the deal would be dead. But in recent days, the US commander-in-chief, no less, has said that the deal is “stupid” and “weak”. There cannot be any ambiguity in that. That is the contemporaneous view of our greatest partner and friend. Surely to goodness, that is justification for pausing the deal.

We have learned about the Pelindaba treaty. I have to say that I was not aware of it until very recently, but it is a showstopper. Paul Bérenger, the Deputy Prime Minister of Mauritius, recently said that there will be no nuclear weapons on Diego Garcia. He has been very helpful to the Government by laying out exactly what things will look like when Mauritius takes control of Diego Garcia. The Minister says, “Well, we cannot comment on that because it is operational,” but that is precisely what it is not. We are not talking about precise B-52s or Ohio class submarines going into Diego Garcia—I do not want to know about that. What I want to know about is the legal structure within which it is possible for these things to be in Diego Garcia and Chagos in general.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I made this point to the Minister earlier, but perhaps my right hon. Friend might also explain it. The Deputy Prime Minister of Mauritius made it clear as recently as yesterday that—as the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Tim Roca) said—there is no ambiguity at all: no nuclear weapons on Chagos for any Government.

[Dr Murrison]

That is precisely the case; it is as plain as a pikestaff, yet the Government persist with the policy.

It is perfectly reasonable and respectable for the Government to say, “The facts have clearly changed, and all these things have come to light, so we will pause this. There is no hurry in this matter, nor any dishonour in saying that we need to consult on it more widely—potentially indefinitely. Nevertheless, we will continue the process and keep it open.” I appreciate that, to save the Government’s blushes, we cannot simply can it, but we can pause it.

If the Minister wants more evidence that the Chagossians have been trampled all over during this process, she need only refer to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which said in December 2025 that we should pause the deal in order to ensure that the Chagossians’ voices are properly heard. She is being attacked from all quarters, and the unifying message from all those quarters is, “For goodness sake, let’s pause this—just think again.”

[Lincoln Jopp]

Does my right hon. and gallant Friend agree that this could well be a case of, “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, it is possible that you have failed to appreciate the gravity of the situation”?

[Dr Murrison]

My hon. Friend, who is experienced in these matters, makes an extremely good point. We need to keep our heads in all this. The Conservative party has been consistent in its opposition to this terrible, terrible surrender deal. The people out there honestly cannot understand why the Government persist with it. It is plainly not a matter of national security. I fear that all this is underpinned by the Government’s insistence on satisfying their post-colonial guilt. The Government need to get over that and understand that national security has primacy in this matter.

[Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)]

I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that, as a Labour Member, I have had zero conversations with other Labour Members about this deal being motivated by some kind of post-colonial guilt—that is absolutely not a motivation, and I want to dispel that impression once and for all. He talks about consistency. Why was it that the Conservatives started the negotiations? Why was it that 85% of the negotiations were concluded by them? Does he not agree that, now that they are out of office, the Conservatives have suddenly discovered that they do not need to be consistent?

[Dr Murrison]

I do not have any insight into the hon. Gentleman’s conversations with Labour Members. As a former Foreign Office Minister, I would say that there are negotiations and then there are negotiations, and sometimes we can use negotiations as a tool to keep certain parties happy, while having no intention of agreeing to what they are demanding of us.

Furthermore, a lot of the pressure for all this comes from the advisory note by the ICJ. In this country, we think of judges as upstanding and impartial maintainers of our legal system and the rule of law. That is not necessarily the case when it comes to supranational judicial bodies. We know, for example, that Patrick Robinson—one of the judges involved with the 2019 ICJ decision—has been demanding that the UK pony up £19 trillion in slavery reparations. Those are not apolitical, independent judicial figures. Many of them have an agenda, and it is one that is hostile to this country—as hostile, I would say, as some of the parties, like Russia and China, that we are currently trying to prevent from getting a hold on those islands.

It is perfectly reasonable for the President of the United States, who I have to confess is not my cup of tea, to decide—belatedly, but nevertheless—that this is a disastrous measure and that he wants nothing to do with it. He has signalled that in his own inimitable fashion, and the Government should take note, pause the surrender treaty and come back with something better, if at all. This deal, surely, is as dead as the dodo.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Slinger]

I thank the even more loyal hon. and gallant Member for his history lesson, but it does not change the fundamentals: 85% of the negotiations took place under the Conservatives.

In November 2022, the right hon. Member for Braintree (Sir James Cleverly), who was then Foreign Secretary, said:

“Through negotiations, taking into account relevant legal proceedings, it is our intention to secure an agreement on the basis of international law to resolve all outstanding issues”. —[Official Report, 3 November 2022; Vol. 721, c. 354WS.]

In February 2025, a spokesperson for the Leader of the Opposition insisted that she understood that negotiations over the islands were needed due to the international legal position. This motion is obvious political opportunism. These are hon. and right hon. Members of this House of Commons who raised no objections in Parliament, filed no critical questions and voiced no concerns on social media. Only after leaving government did they do so, but with no plan of their own.

On the matter of the sovereignty of the Chagossians, the Conservatives’ view is logically inconsistent. They want the UK to retain sovereignty, but they attack the Government for not giving the Chagossians the right to self-determination. They ruled out resettlement. Some Chagossians want to return to Diego Garcia, so are Conservative Members calling for them to be returned to that island, with the inevitable issues that that would cause for the operation of the vital base? Opposition Members have gone rather silent on that point.

[Dr Murrison]

Does the hon. Gentleman see any parallel between the plight of Chagossians and the plight of Greenlanders? The Prime Minister has gone out of his way, correctly, to defend the rights of Greenlanders, but he is doing the complete reverse for Chagossians.

[John Slinger]

The sovereignty of the Chagossians is a sensitive and delicate issue which we are attempting to deal with, as my hon. Friend the Minister set out. We have established a contact group. Many meetings have taken place, and I strongly endorse those steps to give respect to the Chagossian people for what has happened to them. The Conservatives used only £1.6 million of the £40 million support fund for the Chagossian people, which hardly indicates that when they were in office the interests of the Chagossian people were their No. 1 priority.

In conclusion, this motion is political opportunism of the worst kind, because it concerns national security and the British national interest, and the Conservatives really should not be playing party political games with that. Nor should they be using words like “surrender” with such abandon, as the shadow Foreign Secretary does, because that implies things that are simply not true and it is whipping up public concern, which is totally unnecessary, particularly regarding British national interest. That is why I am very glad to oppose this opportunistic motion before the House. I commend the Minister on her speech.