London’s High Court refused permission on Tuesday for a legal challenge over Britain’s deal with Mauritius to cede sovereignty of the Chagos Islands, home to the U.S.-British Diego Garcia air base.
Three claimants including Bertrice Pompe, a British national born in Diego Garcia who last May unsuccessfully tried to block the deal, took legal action after Britain agreed last year to transfer sovereignty of the Indian Ocean archipelago.
Under the deal, Britain will retain control of the strategically important military base on Diego Garcia on a 99-year lease that preserves U.S. operations there.
U.S. President Donald Trump said last month the deal was a “big mistake” and compared British Prime Minister Keir Starmer unfavourably to Britain’s leader in World War Two, Winston Churchill, over limited support for U.S. strikes on Iran, including the use of Diego Garcia.
Trump had previously said he understood the deal was the best Starmer could make. Starmer has defended his actions, saying his decisions were guided by law and the “national interest”.
Lawyers representing Pompe and two others – Misley Mandarin and his father Michel Mandarin, who are trying to establish a settlement on one of the islands – argued Britain’s Foreign Office unlawfully failed to consult Chagossians.
Judge Mary Stacey, in a written ruling, acknowledged the “long and shameful history to the treatment of the inhabitants of the Chagos Islands” from the 1960s and 1970s, when they were forcibly removed to make way for the military facilities.
But, she added, the legal challenge was effectively a re-run of arguments which had been dismissed by English courts in litigation about the islands over recent decades.
Britain’s Foreign Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Lawyers representing the three claimants said they intended to challenge Tuesday’s decision at the Court of Appeal.
Pompe said in a statement: “How do the government sleep at night?”
(Reporting by Sam Tobin）
