Katie Lam

The question that we are voting on today is the deal that the Government have agreed to. It is an appalling deal, and it should be opposed. The Government’s arguments for putting the deal forward become even thinner when we look at the amendments and how the Government have responded to them both here and in the other place. If, as the Government claim, the deal will make us safer, why not support Lords amendment 1, which would ensure that payments are made to the Mauritian Government only if our armed forces retain access to the Diego Garcia base? We have already heard that the Government will not support Lords amendments 2 and 3, but if, as the Government claim, the costs of the deal are proportionate, why not support Lords amendments 5 and 6, which would provide much-needed transparency about why taxpayers are being asked to stump up so much for the privilege of handing away territory? We hear no such support for those amendments, so the Chagos handover cannot really be about our security, the Chagossians or self-determination. So what is it about? The truth is that this so-called deal is motivated entirely by ideology. We have heard from the Government’s Attorney General that “almost every aspect” of the British empire was “deeply racist”, echoing the language used by the Mauritians at the International Court of Justice. Of course, when Britain has done something seriously wrong, we should be honest about that, but in the case of the Chagos islands, there was no original British sin. Mauritius never had sovereignty over the Chagos islands, and practically no Mauritians have ever lived there. The islands have been under British sovereignty since 1814, before which they were occupied by the French. Before that, they were uninhabited. This is no decolonisation; it is a surrender. Our history is complex. It contains cruelties, yes, but also enormous contributions to human health, wealth and flourishing around the world. The darkest moments in our history were hardly unique, yet many of the most virtuous moments in that history were truly exceptional. I believe that we should be proud of the contributions that our country has made to the world. However, the Government’s position on the amendments lays bare the truth: they simply do not agree. Instead, they believe that it is their responsibility to go around the world flagellating themselves and righting imagined wrongs on behalf of and at the expense of the British taxpayer. To their minds, this country is indelibly stained by the actions of those who came before us. The Chagos surrender is one such example, but it is not the only one, and I fear it will not be the last. To attempt to right the wrongs, real or imagined, of the distant past by squeezing the taxpayers of today is divisive madness. If the Government ever want the British people to believe that they are motivated by anything other than deep shame about our history, they would do well to accept the amendments before us today or—far better—to scrap this deal entirely. The British people are owed a Government who stand up for their interests today, not punish them for the imagined sins of our ancestors.