Britain’s colonial shame lives on in the Chagos Islands

The largest island, Diego Garcia, is a joint US-British military base (Photo: Pickyrl/ The US national archives)

US military bases take priority over the lives of Chagossians deported from their homes. That’s what Andy Burnham’s meeting with Donald Trump confirmed.

At the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump branded the UK’s deal to hand over the Chagos Islands—a small group of islands in the Indian Ocean—back to Mauritius as “terrible” and an “act of total weakness”. 

Burnham’s response was “Yep”.

The 2025 deal would have seen Britain cede sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. However, Britain would still pay £101m a year to keep the joint British-US military base open on the largest island, Diego Garcia.

The base is of high strategic importance for both countries. Their fear is that their rival China could establish influence in the region that was once tightly in the grip of the British and then the US empire.

The history of the Chagos Islands is marred by European imperialism, first French and then British, who colonised the islands and brought over enslaved people to work for their plantations. 

After the Second World War, the US became the top imperialist power with Britain as a junior partner.

In 1966, Britain “swept and sanitised” the Chagos Islands, expelling the entire population from their homes and deporting them to the island nation of Mauritius. Much of the diaspora still live in poverty.

This expulsion was a crime against humanity, according to the International Criminal Court. Since then, Chagossians have been fighting for the right to return to the islands. Meanwhile, Britain and the US use the land to assert military dominance in the Indian Ocean.

There are around 600 Chagossians living in the UK since the British government awarded them passports in 2002. When they arrived, many were left to live in the lounge of Gatwick airport for two weeks as the government had no plan for them.

In May 2025, when Starmer signed the deal to hand the islands back to Mauritius—minus the military base—the right in Britain were furious about the ‘surrendering of Britain’s strategic interests’.

The mainstream coverage of the Chagos Islands has always been through the lens of military control, never about the people of the Islands who are still fighting to return. 

Burnham is standing strong in this tradition. His submission to Trump at the UN General Assembly asserts that his focus is on pleasing the US and ensuring there will continue to be Western military presence in the Indian Ocean.

This is a relic of imperialism that should stay the past—Britain and the US should get their hands off the Chagos Islands. The Chagossians should be allowed to return to their homes.