A spokesman for Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said it was “perfectly reasonable for the US administration to consider the detail” of any agreement.
But shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel said the latest development was “complete humiliation” for the prime minister because Labour had been “desperate to sign off the surrender of the Chagos Islands before President Trump returns to office”.
In October, President Biden had previously praised the “historic agreement” which he said secured the future of a base which “plays a vital role in national, regional, and global security.”
It is unclear if Trump’s administration would have any objection. The incoming president has not publicly commented on the deal.
But the incoming US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said it poses a “serious threat”, arguing it gives the islands to a country aligned with China. Mauritius has a trade agreement with China.
Reform UK leader and Trump ally Nigel Farage believes the agreement would damage Sir Keir’s relations with the US president-elect.
“If this gets signed before the inauguration, when the Americans realise… that Diego Garcia, their most important military base in the world, may effectively be rendered pretty useless, I think the special relationship will be fractured in a way that will not be mended during the course of this government,” he told the .
But on Wednesday at Prime Minister’s Questions, Sir Keir defended the deal, pointing out the negotiations had started under the last Tory government. He insisted the deal was the best way to safeguard the military base.
Reports had suggested Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam would sign off an agreement on Wednesday as he attended a cabinet meeting, but it was later announced his attorney general was travelling to London to continue talks.
The UK took control of the Chagos Islands, or British Indian Ocean Territory, from its then colony, Mauritius, in 1965 and went on to evict its population of more than 1,000 people to make way for the Diego Garcia base.
Mauritius, which won independence from the UK in 1968, has maintained that the islands are its own, and the UN’s highest court has ruled, in an advisory opinion, that the UK’s administration of the territory is “unlawful”.
