The UK government has risked a diplomatic row by accusing the Mauritian Prime Minister of painting a “factually inaccurate” portrayal of the proposed deal between the two countries over the Chagos Islands.
Downing Street made the unusually critical intervention about a foreign leader on Wednesday after Navin Ramgoolam told his parliament that an earlier version of the deal did not factor in inflation, among other disputed claims.
Sir Keir Starmer’s official spokesperson criticised Ramgoolam’s depiction of the deal: “He has got those figures — or at least the way he was characterising it — wrong. The summary of the deal was plainly aimed at a domestic political audience, but it is factually inaccurate.”
The intervention comes at a delicate time for the controversial deal that would see the UK lease the island of Diego Garcia, which houses a crucial UK-US military base. Britain is currently seeking the approval of Donald Trump’s government for the revised terms.
Ramgoolam demanded the renegotiation of an earlier version of the deal that had been drawn up by his predecessor, whom he replaced at an election in November last year, with Britain.
He told MPs on Tuesday that the agreement secured by the former Mauritian prime minister Pravind Jugnauth had been negotiated by “someone who didn’t know mathematics”.
He claimed it was based on a “fixed” US dollar exchange rate for the 99-year duration of the deal — something that British officials disputed.
His remarks on Tuesday led some media outlets to claim that factoring in inflation would mean the overall price tag of the 99-year deal had risen from £9bn to £18bn — a figure about which Starmer was asked several times during prime minister’s questions in the House of Commons on Wednesday.
The same afternoon Ramgoolam’s office put out a statement saying that reports of his claims had been misleading.
“Mauritius has never said that the financial package in the agreement between Mauritius and the UK on the Chagos Archipelago had doubled as alleged [in some reports],” the statement said.
It added that the Mauritian government was committed to finalising the agreement and ratifying it in a treaty.
Both London and Port Louis are bracing for the new US administration’s verdict on the latest terms of the deal.
Britain’s national security adviser Jonathan Powell will discuss it with his US counterpart Mike Waltz in Washington this week, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.
Waltz had been among senior allies of the US president who criticised the proposals last year. Marco Rubio, now his secretary of state, was another.
The UK government has defended the importance of the deal, arguing that international legal rulings on the status of the archipelago cast doubt over the future operation of the air base and port facility on Diego Garcia.
Downing Street said: “The legal and security advice is very clear that the operation of the base will be at risk if there is not a deal.”
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch accused Starmer of “immoral surrender” in the House of Commons, as she criticised the UK Prime Minister for handing over sovereignty of the Indian Ocean territory and agreeing to pay billions of pounds to lease back its largest atoll.
