More recently, to quote the Wiki entry, “Ruling on the sovereignty dispute between Mauritius and the UK, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea has ordered the return of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius”. So they have now been returned, effectively minus Diego Garcia, the atoll where the UK/US air base has been built. So what do those Stateside say?
As the BBC has reported, “US President Joe Biden welcomed the ‘historic agreement’ … He said it secured the future of a key military base which ‘plays a vital role in national, regional, and global security.’” Then comes one more item to consider: when he was Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly was moving towards a very similar deal with Mauritius.
So what has Cleverly said when what was essentially his deal was signed off? As if you need to ask. He called his own deal “weak”. His fellow Tory leadership candidate Tom Tugendhat “argued the deal had been ‘negotiated against Britain's interest’ and it was ‘disgraceful’ that such talks had begun under the previous Conservative government”. His own party was poo!
But the whining of what Robin Day memorably and correctly called Here Today And Gone Tomorrow Politicians was nothing when put alongside the barrage of spiteful bad faith emanating from the Tory press. The Murdoch Times dispensed with reality as it whined “PM defies US to cede Chagos”.
That’s the same US whose President just backed the deal.
Here it comes: “The Chagos Islands have belonged to Britain since 1814 and include the strategically vital Diego Garcia military base. Yesterday, in a deal condemned as a shameful and dangerous capitulation, Labour agreed to hand them to Mauritius - which lies 1,300 miles away and is an ally of China … STARMER’S SURRENDER”. Why oh why oh why oh why oh why?!?!?
A headline selecting its facts very carefully: the UK and US keep control of Diego Garcia, the islands were part of Mauritius before the UK’s act of splitting them off in 1965, and Mauritius is free to make alliances with whom its democratically elected Government wishes. Cue another nay-sayer.
Yes, the Mail has exhumed the punditry career of Dan, Dan The Oratory Man! “Labour are surrendering to a Chinese puppet state” he claims. Jonathan Portes has corrected this flat-out lie, “Mauritius is pretty much level with the UK on the Economist Democracy Index, and ahead of US”, adding “I see Dan Hannan's self-proclaimed devotion to democracy and the rights of nation-states to make their own decisions doesn't extend to Africans”.
And all the while, one thought enters time and again: had this deed been done by a Tory Government, the Murdoch and Rothermere press would not have said boo. Nor would the Telegraph, whoever ends up controlling it. Also, the BBC report explains what the press doesn’t want us to know: “Brexit left many European nations reluctant to continue backing the UK’s stance in international forums”. The weakening effect of leaving the EU.
The Tories and their press pals are full of crap. But you knew that already.
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4 comments:
The Chagos Islands have NEVER "belonged" to Britain. They were de facto invaded and occupied, which is not the same thing. In other words, a standard colonial fascist operation. Land theft, nothing more.
So small wonder Mauritius fucked Britain and the USA right off after independence. As have many other post-independents. For obvious reasons.
We can be thankful that it was the Tories that got rid of the empire.
After India and Ceylon got independence, Churchill whined about Labour "scuttling" the empire. That's fine: that's what the leader of the opposition is there for. Government is different.
It was economic and political necessity to dismantle the empire. The Conservatives didn't want to, but had no choice.
By the time they had finished, most of it had gone. The Tories had to own it. If Labour had done that, we'd never hear the end of it.
Try telling that to Nial Ferguson. Our esteemed lead hard right historian, who along with his pals is busily re-writing British history to taste, claimed in his acclaimed book, tv series, novel and whatever other way he sells what remains of his soul, that it was, of course, all down to left wing wokerati that we 'lost' the empire.
Stuff like WW2 dislodging our influence, crippling debt meaning we couldn't afford to administer it, that the level of trade between the homeland and empire had never justified it, and, heaven formed, that native peoples had had enough of imperial rule are all dismissed as inconsequential alongside the lefts 'trendy capitulation '.
Nor does, for some reason, perhaps because he lives and works there, does our Nial mention the USA's role in pushing the UK to 'un burden itsel' of its former territories.
As you rightly say much of the Empire (including under the Thatch) was graciously granted independence under the Conservatives. Somehow, even that was down to the liberal left according to Ferguson. How? Buggered if I know.
16:12.
Where "the empire" was concerned Churchill was a life long genocidal mass murdering racist psychopath. An utter nutcase. Which is why he could accurately forecast Hitler's intentions from the start - it takes one to know one.
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