The Empire Slips Further Away

Britain’s decision to hand the Chagos Islands back to Mauritius is just and profoundly symbolic.

It is not every day that a colonial relic is returned with the flourish of legality, diplomacy and emotion. Britain’s quiet retreat from the Chagos Archipelago, a volcanic chain of over 60 islands in the Indian Ocean, represents the end of one of its last major imperial entanglements.

The decision, finalised after a High Court ruling and ceremonially sealed by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, completes the decolonisation of Mauritius and perhaps foretells the fate of other far-flung outposts of the British empire.

Chagos has long been a geopolitical anachronism. Detached from Mauritius in 1965, three years before the latter’s independence, the islands became the British Indian Ocean Territory. Its largest island, Diego Garcia, was leased to the United States, which transformed it into a major military hub. The airstrip has hosted secret rendition flights, supported bombing campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, more recently, launched missions targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels. It was described as “almost indispensable” by the Americans.

Yet what was long deemed indispensable is now politically indefensible. A 2019 advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice, backed by the UN General Assembly, declared the UK’s administration of Chagos unlawful. India, ever attuned to its Indian Ocean backyard, applauded the new agreement as a step towards a rules-based order. For Britain, it marks not just the loss of a territory, but the steady erosion of imperial exceptionalism.

PM Starmer has insisted that the agreement protects British and American interests, noting that the Diego Garcia base will remain operational for the next century under a 99-year lease. That provision is meant to soothe Whitehall’s national security hawks, but it has done little to calm critics. The Conservative opposition, led by Kemi Badenoch, derided the move as an act of “Labour chaos,” lamenting the surrender of British territory and the multi-billion-pound price tag footed by taxpayers. The more vociferous are muttering about dominoes: if Chagos can go, what of Gibraltar? Or the Falklands?

The symbolism is potent. For Chagossians, many of whom were evicted between 1967 and 1973 to make way for the American base, the return marks a kind of homecoming. The mood in Pointe aux Sables was one of joyous vindication.

That emotional release is mirrored by cold logic in Whitehall. Foreign Office mandarins had long warned that further delay would fray ties not just with Mauritius but also with Washington.

The Americans, though never keen on reopening the sovereignty debate, prefer strategic continuity over colonial baggage. This deal offers both. Diego Garcia remains a launchpad, but the diplomatic taint of colonialism is scrubbed clean by treaty. The parallels to other British overseas territories are hard to ignore.

Gibraltar, despite its centuries-old loyalty to the Crown, exists in a permanent state of diplomatic friction with Spain. The Falklands, whose residents overwhelmingly identify as British, still irk Argentina. Though neither faces imminent handover, the Chagos deal sets a precedent. The sun may have set on the empire, but its shadow lingers—and grows fainter by the day.

To British nationalists, the Chagos handover will feel like another loss in a litany of retreats. For them, Brexit was meant to be a reassertion of sovereignty; handing over islands steeped in military utility and symbolic power will appear counterintuitive. But empires are not rebuilt by clinging to legal fictions. They are disassembled often reluctantly, but sometimes wisely.

Britain’s modern role in the world rests less on the illusion of control and more on its ability to shape outcomes through rules, alliances and legitimacy. In this instance, all three have aligned. Chagos returns to its rightful owner. The base stays. The West’s security architecture holds firm. And a wrong, however belatedly, has been righted.

It is, at the very least, the close of one chapter in the long and contested history of British imperialism. For Mauritius, it is a reunion. For Britain, it is a reckoning.