Chagossians

It looks pretty strongly like Burnham is going to just make it go away and negotiate something else.

But I wouldn't be surprised if you saw Donald Trump actually just declare the Chagos Islands independent and an American ally and do a deal with the new Chagossian government that has never before existed.

And this is essential.

The U.S. has a choke point strategy.

The original agreement would see the UK cede sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius and pay around £100 million a year to lease back a strategically important joint UK-US military base there.

Many hundreds of Chagossians were removed from the islands when that base was built.

The DUP's Lord Weir said he wanted to cut through the current fog of uncertainty.

It has left the Chagossians in a form of political purgatory.

And they have been left with a level of uncertainty.

And I think that the one thing above all else we owe to the Chagossian people is to give them certainty and control for the future.

His bill would, among other things, ensure that the military base remained British territory and give the Chagossians the right to resettlement.

Speaking for the Conservatives, Lord Callanan picked up on another part of Lord Weir's bill, that if the island's sovereignty were to be transferred to another state, there'd have to be a consultation with the British Indian Ocean Government, an Act of Parliament in the UK and a referendum of Chagossians.

Now, Nigel Farage, if, if you remember rightly, was flown to Mauritius by Christopher Harbourne just before the summer, uh, on a, in his registers of int- interest, he declared it as a humanitarian mission to...

And he went on behalf of the Chagossians so that they could get their homeland back, and he declared this.

Now he's saying on record, on video, that he'd give it to Donald Trump.

[chuckles] Like...

He was gonna kind of, um, at one time say, "No, no, it's, uh, they have to be independent.

Um, we're gonna back the Chagossians, uh, to be an independent country and let them return." Then all of a sudden it's, "No, no, let's have, uh, let's have the, uh, Americans, uh, ba- basically having them," es- essentially having them.

And he's made such a mess of that, um, Farage, because he, he kind of just, you know, he just, he just plays for whatever, uh, you know, any, any little advantage he thinks he can get at the, at the time defending the, defending the Falklands, but it's kind of on principle.

And I w- I would've thought the reason, uh, you know, he, he's, he's expressed admiration for Putin in the past, although he said he was, you know, the leader he most admired, if not the, if not the man.

Recognizing Mauritius' sovereignty over the chain of islands that's now one of Britain's last and most controversial colonial holdings, the UN's postal union decided it would no longer recognize postage stamps issued by the British Indian Overseas Territory of the UK.

This move adds ever so slightly to the pressure on Britain to leave the chain and represents another baby step towards returning home for Chagossians forcibly relocated to Mauritius decades ago.

Cristiano Ronaldo couldn't wait to get home after a controversial call in Serbia cost him and his country important World Cup qualifying points.

However, throwing his captain's armband down in disgust as he exited the pitch unintentionally did a world of good for a six-month-old Serbian boy with spinal muscular atrophy.

That's the best way I can explain it.

Because it seemed that at the beginning of the thing, I mean, we've had James Tunbridge, who's the attorney general for the Chagossians on the podcast, and we went into this in quite a lot of depth.

But there was a while where President Trump seemed to be flip-flopping back and forward in terms of supporting the deal and then not supporting the deal.

Now, my impression was that that happened because somebody was misinforming him about what the deal contained.

So I hope that Andy Burnham and the Labour government finally get the message, the Americans are not going to sign off on this horrible, horrific deal.

And it's game over, basically.

Even the Chagossians don't want the deal.

That's what I can't understand.

So a lot of islands across the Indian Ocean were sites where they would plant coconut and harvest copra, which is that, that white flesh from coconuts.

Um, and so the Chagossians were, uh, essentially taken there from, uh, Mauritius and, um, had been living there for several generations, um, and several hundred years.

But, um, yes, when the British Ministry of Defense turned their attention to the Chagos Islands, and in particular Diego Garcia within the Chagos Islands, but a few other islands as well, um, there...

What later transpired was that Diego Garcia wasn't mapped in the level of detail that Aldabra was, and it didn't have such a, a, um, remarkable local ecology going on there.

Justice Stacey refuses permission on all grounds in the judicial review claims.

R. Mandarin and R. Pomp challenging the failure to consult Chagossians.

The claimants intend to appeal.

A conservation area used

The majority live in Mauritius, around Port Louis, with smaller communities in the Seychelles and several thousand in the UK.

The Chagos Refugees Group, led by Olivier Boncourt, supports the UK-Mauritius deal.

The UK-based Chagossians are more divided on it.

Which tells you the deal