Sir Edward Leigh

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson), who has spoken with great authority about the military threat. I also commend the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton). I agree with everything he said; he spoke with great good sense and moderation. I wish to speak to my new clause 14—I am grateful to my friends who have signed it—which states: “(1) The Secretary of State must, within six months of this Act receiving Royal Assent, lay before both Houses of Parliament proposals for an advisory referendum of Chagossians residing in the UK, seeking their opinions on the Treaty signed with the Government of Mauritius and the provisions of this Act. (2) Within a month of publishing the proposals specified in subsection (1), the Secretary of State must make time available in both Houses of Parliament for a debate on a substantive motion relating to the proposals.” An advisory referendum would be a moderate and sensible proposal, and I am not sure why anybody would disagree with it. Surely we in this House have a moral duty to the Chagossian people, not to bureaucratic convenience or diplomatic horse trading. My new clause simply calls for the Chagossians to be consulted on their own future. That is not unreasonable. It is a modest and entirely proper request. After decades of exile and neglect, it is indefensible to negotiate their homeland’s fate without even asking them. Have we ever handed over a people to a foreign power without even consulting them? Proponents of paying Mauritius to take the island cite international law, but the entire point of decolonisation was to assert the self-determination of peoples. The United Nations was founded upon the principle that nations and peoples should be free to determine their own destiny in a peaceful way. Chagossians, as we now all agree, were wronged by both the British and the Mauritian authorities. By the way, I am probably the only person sitting in this Chamber who has actually been to the islands—[Interruption.] I am sorry; I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell). I went there with the Defence Committee 40 years ago. We kicked those people out of their homes, albeit for perfectly the legitimate reason of promoting the stability and security of the free world, and Mauritius accepted money to help look after displaced Chagossians. No one can dispute the fact that Chagossians are treated as having second-class status in Mauritius. Chagossians who have been living there are fleeing in increasing numbers to the United Kingdom. Many of them happily assert that they want the sovereignty of the United Kingdom to continue over the British Indian Ocean Territory, but they also want a right to return. Righting the wrongs we have committed means listening to the Chagossians directly, and that is all I am asking for. The amendment would give Parliament the chance to ensure that justice is finally done for those who suffered most. Britain should not repeat the sin of dispossession under the guise of decolonisation. I repeat, Britain should not repeat the sin of dispossession under the guise of decolonisation. To hand the territory to Mauritius would not “end empire”, but merely pass the islands from one remote capital to another; from one imperial power to another. The United Kingdom must not compound historic injustice by ignoring the only people with a legitimate moral claim to these islands. The Chagos islands are of course a linchpin of regional security for Britain, the United States and our allies in an increasingly contested Indo-Pacific. Undermining that strategic position would embolden hostile powers and weaken our ability to uphold freedom of navigation. Those who call this a colonial relic misunderstand it. It is a forward defence post, not a backward-looking possession. As has been said time and again, the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion carries no legal binding force and should not dictate British policy. Allowing unelected judges in The Hague to override Parliament’s responsibilities is an abdication of national sovereignty. The Government should resist any creeping judicial globalism that seeks to erode British self-government under the cloak of “international law.” I will end on this point, and I believe it is a very powerful point: consultation with the Chagossians through a UK referendum is an act of basic democratic respect, not a legal technicality. My new clause would strengthen rather than weaken Britain’s moral standing by showing that we act with fairness and consent. We should not wash our hands of responsibility for British subjects in favour of imagined diplomatic convenience. The right course is to combine justice for the Chagossians with the preservation of Britain’s strategic obligations, not to sacrifice one for the other. Parliament should back these new clauses and amendments as an affirmation that Britain remains a nation that keeps faith with its peoples and its allies alike.