We’ve lost interest in our dependencies

Let nobody say Liz Truss achieved nothing in her mayfly days at Downing Street. She gave away the vast British Indian Ocean territory, the islands and the sea around them, known as the Chagos Islands. To be more precise, in talks with Mauritian officials while in New York, she set in train negotiations with Mauritius over a handover next year. Exempted from any such agreement will be the island of Diego Garcia, nominally British but for all practical purposes under the control of the United States, who maintain a huge and important military base there, probably torturing people – but we wouldn’t know or, if we do, wouldn’t be so impertinent as to complain.

The Chagos decision is more melancholy than tragic: a complete capitulation by Britain in the face of repeated rulings against us in international law. The necessary surrender – for that is what it is – received only scant attention in our news media. We British just aren’t interested in our overseas dependencies any more. We see them as an embarrassment and a nuisance. No wonder the Falklands Islands Legislative Assembly took fright, issuing an immediate statement that the move to cede the Chagos Islands had no bearing on the status of the Falklands, and warning the government of Argentina not to read anything into it.

Technically that’s true: Britain’s position – that there will be no negotiations with Buenos Aires without the Falkland Islanders’ consent – remains unchanged. But in Port Stanley it will be noticed that the Chagossians’ future appears to be being negotiated bilaterally by Britain and Mauritius: nothing has been said about consulting the Chagossians themselves, probably now more numerous than Falklanders. Today they are scattered between Mauritius, Britain and the Seychelles, many living in poverty after their shameful expulsion from their own lands and seas by a 1960s Labour government, cap in hand to Washington. This is how we treat our overseas subjects when they get in the way.

The Falkland Islanders’ alarm has received equally scant attention in the British media. We don’t care any more. Witness our government’s insulting treatment last week of the heads of government of our overseas territories, postponing until further notice a London meeting (with ministers) of the Joint Ministerial Council. This convocation, of huge importance to all 14 territories, was called off with only days’ notice. Many of the overseas representatives had already set out: it’s a long journey from Pitcairn Island or Tristan da Cunha. Some had arrived.

That the minister responsible, Zac Goldsmith, had just been appointed and was off to Egypt for the Cop27 conference was the reason given. This will not do. The date of Cop27 was settled months in advance; our overseas territories could have been asked earlier to postpone; or another minister could have been substituted and briefed. And the cancellation should have been accompanied by the most profound and public apology on the part of HMG, and a new date fixed firmly. One is left hoping that at least our visitors had their travel expenses refunded, and the costs were not borne by their tiny budgets.

This has ended up looking like (and being taken as) a snub – but it’s worse than that. It was not even a calculated snub, and if there’s one thing worse than being insulted on purpose, it is being insulted by mere inattention. It’s quite possible somebody at this end simply forgot until too late. The truth, one fears, is that the matter was not considered of any importance.

I write as an old colonial. At least to a degree I must be wary of my own instincts in this field, which are tinged with nostalgia and indignation. In boyhood and youth, living in some of these former colonies, I’ve seen Westminster caving in all the way down the line, usually after insisting for years that they never would.

Often it was unavoidable and sometimes it has been for the best. Decolonisation has usually been the only way, but this should not be taken as a general rule, losing interest in what we have, just because we’ve lost what we had. France keeps a proud and iron grip on her slew of small possessions across the globe. Most of our residual overseas territories remain British because their inhabitants want them to be British, and we have a responsibility to these people.

I believe, for instance, that a 99-year leaseback arrangement with Argentina over the Falklands could be turned to the islanders’ own interests; it is sad they’ve been cut off from their own continent; but unless or until they are overwhelmingly persuaded, we must defend their right to say no. Diego Garcia, now inhabited only by military-related personnel, has gone beyond recall and, as Britain has power there only de jure and no longer de facto, we’d do best (alongside Mauritius with whom by treaty we’re bound to agree) to sell the island and its military base to Washington: for a massive sum.

The Chagossians, however, remain our responsibility, betrayed by Britain in one of the more disgraceful if minor episodes in our 20th-century foreign policy. Will they get a vote? Do many of them actually want to return to their islands? How will the switch to Mauritian sovereignty affect theirs and their descendants’ rights (granted in 2002) to claim British citizenship?

It’s all a mess. Colonial policy in the Caribbean and Atlantic is also a mess. The corrupt British Virgin Islands need sorting out. The Cayman Islands’ status as a tax haven should not be sustainable. Some of the other islands are getting restive. There has been a creeping US tendency to think the Pentagon controls Ascension Island.

And I could go on – but who in modern Britain would be listening? A Guardian correction to its Chagos report is telling. ‘This article… was amended. Diego Garcia is in the Indian Ocean, not the Pacific Ocean.’