Betrayal of our islands

The depth of perfidy astounds me. This though is a government which make the betrayal of British interests not just a habit, but a principle.

After the articles have been written about the Chagos surrender elsewhere, analysing the idiocy and betrayal of trust. Labour List even had to publish an article assuring readers that it is not technically treason. (Morally it is, but ‘moral’ is not a word the salons of Islington actually understand.) The layers of moving plates that brought us to this position should be studied, as they will hurt us more.

“You have no choice in the matter, Minister” are familiar words which some politicians despise, and others delight in. Being told that there is no choice, relieves the burden of deciding. It is free licence for his guilty inclinations, with no moral qualm.

There is a choice though, and one must look behind the mandarin’s simplified assurance, and the facts, the law and the civil servant’s own motivations for trying to force his idea. Former Conservative ministers have talked about battling civil servants to get their policies through: Labour roll over and let them have their way, especially when they secretly support what they could never admit to.

At some time soon, we will look at all the flattery, free gifts, holidays and much else that decision-makers have received from foreign states to turn against British interests. The lobbyists who worked for the Mauritian government, suddenly promoted into or adjacent to our government and carrying on as if still in their former employment. (There are names, but there are also libel writs.) Or the diplomat who turned native and has campaigned ruthlessly against his own country, using his exalted position to gain a voice. From several voices arguments dishonestly made – or so it seems from after the event.

The strongest-put argument we heard until last year was this: that the Wilson Government cruelly dispossessed the islanders from their homes, and so we forfeit any right until they are allowed to return. There was a series of emotional court cases on the very point. I read article after article (many from the same writer) on this argument, and by this the resolve to defend the islands was sapped. That decades’ long argument vanished in a moment when the Starmer government handed the islands away. These Chagossians so long championed were abandoned; their tears had served their purpose. Indeed, it was displaced Chagossians who tried to stop the giveaway – but now they were not the battering ram to burst the door down but the peasants to be trampled underfoot. Such has been their fate.

Strangely, those who once championed the Chagossians have disappeared. Were they really concerned, ever? I would like to hear from them.

As has been written here and in many other places, there was no compulsion to sunder the Chagos Islands from Britain. We should indeed have annexed them to the United Kingdom. The quasi-legal arguments were laughable, and declared by a tribunal of political appointees with no love for Britain. This was known, and ignored for convenience or malice.

The Foreign Office – I would sack the lot of ’em. If anyone sensible walks through the door to Number 10 in 2029, on the first day the new PM should take away from the Foreign Office responsibility for the territories. Currently FCO high-ups treat the territories as disposable foreign items, or baubles to be used in a diplomatic exchange. It may be relevant that responsibility for colonies was handed to the newly united Foreign and Commonwealth Office almost by accident, as the last African colonies achieved independence and it was a sort of winding-up exercise. The FCO has been in that frame of mind ever since. I could prepared a thick bundle of evidence of this get-rid-of-’em attitude if I had the time. It is not to be cured, so the territories need to be rescued from the Foreign Office.

With the mandarins’ attitude as it is, the entrance of Labour into office meant things could only go one way. The new Foreign Secretary made his name denouncing colonialism, without actually knowing what it means, and suddenly the colonies are his to command. The Attorney General, the Iago of the government, made his name defending everyone but the British people, and is now a champion of made-up laws.

Teams from Whitehall have been all over the world over the last few years negotiating trade agreements. Starmer signed one with India, to his credit. If there had been common sense, or any sense of national preservation, then the treaties signed would have committed both sides to respect each other’s territorial integrity and support it in every international forum – but no effort has been made, and we remain isolated. It is negligence, and worse. But then Whitehall is not interested beyond its narrow portfolios.

The result of was a negotiation that came out the way it had to when both teams are speaking for the same side, and not ours. The treaty then that has handed over the islands is founded in corruption and dishonesty. It is what one expects from such a government as we have, painful as it is to say that.

If there is anything left of Britain when Starmer is bundled out of the door, someone will have rebuilding to do. I shudder to write “reconquest” but a lot of rebuilding is needed, once the rotten core of the Foreign Office have been cleared out.