Vincent McAviney: Europe correspondent on UK giving sovereignty to Chagos Islands

The British government announced it will hand sovereignty over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, in a settlement that ends decades of disputes over Britain’s last African colony, while maintaining a key US-British military base in the archipelago.

Europe correspondent Vincent McAviney says the UK keeping its military base for another 99 years marks a landmark deal for Prime Minister Keir Starmer's new government.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Vincent Mecavini is at UK Europe correspondent. He's with us
this morning. Vincent, welcome to the show. Good to have
you back.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Tell me about this secret secretive islands in the Indian Ocean.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yeah, a bit closer to your part of the world.
The Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean have been used
by the UK for the last fifty years. They've had
sovereignty over them. They were given that by Mauritius and
the UK has operated a military base there on Diego Garcia,
and this involved moving off the Chegossian people who are

(00:36):
relocated here to the UK and have a long time
protest on this. But this military base, now used jointly
by the UK and the US, is a top secret facility.
It's used for US long range bombing. It's seen as
a critical point for their sort of global power projection,
particularly in Southeast Asia and with a sort of resurgent China.

(00:57):
But this deal has been announced now because of ongoing
protests that the UK will hand back sovereignty too Mauritius
of the islands, but they'll be able to keep control
of Diego Garcia and that special US UK military base
for Navy ships and as I said, long range bombers
for at least the next ninety nine years, in a

(01:18):
bit of a landmark deal for Kirstama's new government.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
And also this morning the flights that are coming out
of Lebanon for UK citizens they're going aheit.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, that's right. There have been evacuation flights charted in
part by our Foreign Office to get British people out
of Lebanon, but it's unclear how much longer they'll be
able to operate going in and out of the Beirut Airport.
So what we believe is going on now, and we
have some confirmation, is that there's been an increase in

(01:49):
personnel at a UK military base in Cyprus that's aquitary
an RAF base, and they're looking to potentially evacuate via sea.
They would deploy ships from the Royal Navy and get
British people who are no longer able to fly out
if they decide to go given the war now with Israel,

(02:10):
they'll take them out by boat and then bring them
to Cyprus. We know already that earlier in the week
military assets, navy vessels in the Mediterranean, and we think
planes from Aquitari that base in Cypress. We use to
help defend Israel when it came under that huge bombardment
of rockets from Iran, and the UK government is saying

(02:31):
that it will continue to defend Israel should it come
under attack again.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
All right, thanks so much for that. That's Slincton mcavinnie,
Europe Correspondent.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
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