The Chagos Islands are an archipelago in the Indian Ocean. Britain cleaved them off from Mauritius in 1965, as it prepared to grant its former colony independence. The archipelago includes Diego Garcia, on which Britain and America operate a military base.
The International Court of Justice issued an advisory ruling that Britain had been wrong to separate the islands from Mauritius in 1965.
In May 2025 Keir Starmer's government ceded sovereignty over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. Diego Garcia was retained on an initial 99-year lease for the British-American base. The bulk of the negotiations had been held under the previous Conservative government. Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, denounced the deal despite her party's role in negotiating it.
On January 20th 2026 Donald Trump attacked the deal on Truth Social, calling it "an act of GREAT STUPIDITY". He argued that Britain's willingness to lease Diego Garcia undermined his case for needing to own Greenland to have a reliable base. A bill to ratify the deal was in its final stages in Parliament in January 2026.
Let's organize this thing and take all the fun out of it.