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Plans to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius are still on track, the UK government has insisted, after a minister caused confusion by telling MPs that the deal was “paused”.
Hamish Falconer, a Foreign Office minister and former diplomat, made the comment on Wednesday as the deal came under increasing pressure from opposition parties in the UK and from Donald Trump.
Last week Trump said Keir Starmer was “making a big mistake” by handing sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius in exchange for the UK and US being allowed to continue using their airbase on one of the islands, Diego Garcia.
In response to an urgent question in the Commons from the Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, Falconer said: “We have a process going through parliament in relation to the treaty.” He added: “We will bring that back to parliament at the appropriate time. We are pausing for discussions with our American counterparts.”
As the government scrambled to contain the confusion caused by Falconer’s comments, sources in the Foreign Office said he had misspoken. A spokesperson said: “There is no pause. We have never set a deadline. Timings will be announced in the usual way.”
The shadow foreign secretary, Priti Patel, who is in the US meeting political figures about the deal, pounced on the comments and described the deal as “an appalling act of betrayal”.
“I am in Washington lobbying senior administration figures on this issue and I am pleased the UK government has been forced to pause the legislation,” she said. “But ministers must go further: now it is time for Keir Starmer to face reality and kill this shameful surrender once and for all before it does any more damage.”
Earlier, Falconer made it clear that the UK government was taking notice of Trump’s intervention, which went against the grain of not only what he had previously said but also US government policy.
While the president had previously criticised the plan, which is backed by the state department, earlier this month he described it as the best deal Starmer could make in the circumstances.
Falconer told MPs: “The view of the United States president may well have changed but the treaty has not.”
The bill cleared its third reading in the Commons last month and members of the House of Lords say they were told unofficially earlier this month that it was due to come before them this week. However, those plans appear to have been pulled after Trump’s intervention on 18 February.
Farage used his urgent question on Wednesday to force the issue on to the agenda after he had been accused of “performing Maga stunts” by claiming the British government had stopped him from travelling to the Chagos Islands on a humanitarian mission.
He said he had flown to the Maldives to join a delegation bringing aid to four Chagossians who are trying to establish a settlement on one of the archipelago’s islands to protest against the transfer to Mauritius.
In a video posted on X on Saturday, Farage claimed the UK government had blocked his trip to the territory, which cannot be entered without a valid permit. Farage said: “The British government are applying pressure on the president and the government of the Maldives to do everything within their power to stop me getting on that boat and going to the Chagos Islands.”
