David Lammy defends deal to return Chagos Islands to Mauritius

Many people would struggle to pinpoint the Chagos Islands on a map. To say they are remote is an understatement: the 60-odd islands sit some 3,000km from Indonesia to the east and 3,000km from Africa to the west. Yesterday David Lammy, the foreign secretary, was in parliament defending Britain’s decision to return the islands to Mauritius, arguing it secured the future of the strategically important military base on Diego Garcia after years of legal dispute. The base will remain under UK-US control. Critics of the deal, including many Tory MPs, argue it will aid China, which has close ties to Mauritius, and gives away a strategic asset – although the talks were launched under the previous Conservative government. More than 1,000 islanders who were forcibly removed in the 1960s and 70s because of the military base (a government memo at the time dismissed them as “some few Tarzans or Man Fridays”) could now be granted a route home to some of the smaller islands.