Member

Some might say, “Don’t worry, it’ll be okay because the US base will remain on Diego Garcia”. If one were to make that assertion in defence of this arrangement, one would have to jump from operating on the basis of principle abstracted from power to power abstracted from principle. In my opinion, both postures are international relations disasters waiting to happen. Yes, US and British-American forces would have power to engage with any other force that sought to come to one of the other islands if they wished to, but we would much rather not: such an engagement could start a major war. For so long as the islands remained unambiguously under British sovereignty—which they would if we granted the Chagossians self-determination and if they elected to be a British Overseas Territory, as the survey material suggests they overwhelmingly would—they would be protected not only at the power level but at the principle level. We desperately need both.