The United Kingdom has signed a deal to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius while leasing back the military base on Diego Garcia for 99 years, in a settlement that ends one of Britain’s longest-running territorial disputes.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer says the arrangement is in Britain’s national interest. Under the deal, the UK will pay an average of £101m a year to lease the base, with an option to extend for another 40 years. The government will also create a £40m trust fund for Chagossians and make further payments for Mauritian development.
The agreement resolves the legal question of sovereignty over the archipelago, which was separated from Mauritius in 1965 while Mauritius was still a British colony. The UK later purchased the islands for £3m, a history that has fuelled decades of anger among Chagossians and Mauritian politicians.
Diego Garcia is the most important part of the archipelago for strategic purposes. The base there is one of the most secretive military sites on Earth and remains central to Western security planning. Britain and the United States will retain operational use of the facility under the lease.
The deal did not arrive smoothly. BBC reported that a last-minute court injunction briefly blocked the agreement, before it was discharged just after 12:30. That legal scramble shows how contested the issue remained even on the day the deal was signed.
Chagossian campaigners reacted with alarm. One told the BBC that they were “beyond horrified and angry,” while another said: “We are not giving up.” For many islanders displaced during earlier British administration, any agreement that leaves the military base intact is still seen as falling short of justice.
The political significance is wider than the islands themselves. The Chagos dispute has long embarrassed successive British governments, partly because it combines colonial history, displacement, international law and the geopolitical importance of a U.S.-linked base in the Indian Ocean. The new deal tries to settle all of those at once.
The challenge for Starmer is that the compromise may satisfy legal and strategic priorities while leaving moral objections unresolved. The government is betting that a long lease and financial package can make the transfer politically viable. Opponents are likely to argue the islands were handed over only on paper, with the core military arrangement left intact.
Still, for the first time in years, the core terms are clear: Mauritius gets sovereignty, Britain keeps Diego Garcia through a lengthy lease, and the dispute moves from a live territorial claim to a treaty-backed compromise.
