The Metropolitan Police spent two days assessing a post on X and has now closed the matter. No charge will follow. But the episode has turned attention back to a decision that has never been put right: the agreement to hand sovereignty over the Chagossian homeland to Mauritius. We have been fighting that decision in the courts for more than a year, and on 5 November we will be back.
The Metropolitan Police has assessed a social media post by Sarah Helm, the author and journalist married to Britain’s National Security Adviser, Jonathan Powell, and decided that no further action will be taken.
Helm wrote on X on Thursday 15 October: “God help us authors who support Palestine and Palestine Action.” She was replying to a broadcast discussion about the Irish novelist Sally Rooney, whose novels will no longer be supplied to booksellers in the United Kingdom, a decision taken by her publisher, Faber, because of Rooney’s support for Palestine Action, a group proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000.
The police decision, and what it does not settle
On Friday, in the Metropolitan Police’s first statement on the matter, the force said the post was “in the process of being assessed to determine whether any further police investigation may be required”. By Saturday it had reached its conclusion. A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said: “The post was assessed by specialist officers and it was determined that it did not meet the criminal threshold. No further police action will be taken.” It is understood there was insufficient evidence that the post was capable of encouraging support for a proscribed organisation. No charge has been brought, and none is now expected.
We are not going to pretend otherwise, and we are not going to build a case on sand. The police have assessed the post and decided it does not meet the criminal threshold. That is the end of the matter so far as the criminal law is concerned.
We also say plainly what the record supports. Jonathan Powell has not been accused of any wrongdoing. There is no evidence before the public that his wife’s views influenced the Chagos negotiations in any respect. Nothing we publish below rests on the suggestion that he shares her opinions or acted improperly, and no reader should take that suggestion from our words.
Downing Street has distanced the Government from the remark. A government spokesperson said: “These views are held by an individual who does not represent the government in any capacity.”
What the episode has done is return public attention to a decision that goes to the heart of our national interest and has never been put right: the agreement to hand sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius. That decision, not a post on X, is the subject we intend to keep pressing.
The man Labour put in charge of the Chagos negotiations
Powell was appointed the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy for negotiations with Mauritius on the exercise of sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory in September 2024. The Government said his work would involve “engaging the most senior Mauritian and US interlocutors and advising Ministers and HMG negotiators on how to conclude a robust agreement”.
The negotiations were not Labour’s invention. They began in November 2022 under the previous Conservative government, which had by then completed 12 rounds of talks. What changed under Labour was the outcome. On 3 October 2024 the two governments published a joint statement confirming that a political agreement had been reached, and the Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, set out the terms to the Commons on 7 October.
On 8 November 2024 Powell was named National Security Adviser, taking up the post on 2 December and succeeding Sir Tim Barrow. He kept the job when Andy Burnham replaced Sir Keir Starmer as Prime Minister on 20 July 2026. When the Mauritian Prime Minister, Navin Ramgoolam, flew to London on 26 September for the latest round of talks on the archipelago, it was Powell he met.
This is a matter of public policy and accountability, and we will scrutinise it as such. The man who advised ministers on how to conclude the agreement is now the Prime Minister’s principal adviser on national security. The decisions taken in that role deserve examination on their own merits, and we intend to provide it.
A treaty signed, but never brought into force
The agreement was signed on 22 May 2025. It provides for Mauritius to exercise full sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago, with the United Kingdom retaining rights over Diego Garcia, where the joint UK and US military base sits, for an initial 99 years, extendable by a further 40.
It has never come into force. The Bill needed to implement it, the Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill, was introduced on 15 July 2025 and received its second reading on 9 September 2025. It fell when the parliamentary session ended in April 2026.
On 13 April 2026 the Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty told the Commons that the deal had been paused indefinitely, after President Donald Trump withdrew his support, and confirmed that no payments had been made or would be made while the delay continued. Trump had earlier called the agreement “an act of great stupidity” and, on 22 September 2026, told the Prime Minister it was a “terrible deal”. The Commons Library’s latest assessment is blunt: the treaty “has not yet come into force, and ratification by the UK has been paused until an agreement can be reached between the US and the UK”.
We do not read that as a victory, and nobody should mistake it for one. Ministers have not abandoned the policy. Burnham said on 21 September 2026 that the United Kingdom would work with Mauritius and the United States on a way forward, and the Defence Secretary, Wes Streeting, said the following day that the Government would work with Washington “to get the deal to a place where we can support it”, adding that annual payments to Mauritius would not be made “at this stage”. We believe ministers are still searching for a way to revive the agreement, and that is why our campaign and the legal challenge we support matter now.
Why we are campaigning
Three things about this agreement should trouble every British taxpayer, whatever their politics.
The first is that the Chagossian people were not properly asked. For years they have argued that a decision about their homeland was taken over their heads. The claimants in the legal challenge we help fund point to correspondence dated March 2025 in which, they say, the Government stated that “there was no formal consultation in respect of the sovereignty negotiations, and nor was there any obligation to have one”. They argue that the public sector equality duty under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 and the common law duty to consult required otherwise, given that ministers have described the Chagossians as their own people. The Government’s position is that the courts should not intrude on treaty-making and foreign affairs, a submission the High Court accepted at the permission stage.
The second is the money. The Government presents the price as an average of £101 million a year for 99 years, which it values at about £3.4 billion. That headline figure is a discounted net present value, not the cash flow. On the Government’s own annual average, the payments are worth around £10 billion in face value across the period, and Full Fact’s analysis of the deal’s true cost records that opponents, including the Conservatives, put the real cost at up to about £35 billion once inflation is accounted for. British taxpayers should be told the whole sum, not the discounted version of it.
The third is the principle. These are British citizens. Their islands have been British for more than two centuries. We do not accept that British sovereignty, or the rights of British people, should be traded away as a diplomatic convenience.
Support for the islands remaining British is not a fringe position among Chagossians. A survey of Chagossians worldwide, conducted with the Friends of the British Overseas Territories, found that among its 3,389 respondents, 99.2 per cent supported self-determination and remaining British. In December 2025, in a worldwide ballot, Chagossians voted by 1,233 to 108 to establish a government-in-exile and elected Misley Mandarin as Interim First Minister.
Where the parties stand
The Conservatives opposed the agreement from the outset. On 4 June 2025 the then Leader of the Opposition, Kemi Badenoch, sponsored an early day motion against ratification which drew 107 signatures, though early day motions carry no entitlement to a Commons vote. In the Lords on 30 June 2025, a motion against ratification tabled by Lord Callanan was put to a vote and not passed. The Liberal Democrats called for more information on the payments and greater assurance about the base rather than outright rejection.
Reform UK has taken a distinct route, aligning itself with Chagossians who favour resettlement under British rather than Mauritian sovereignty. The Reform UK MP Danny Kruger wrote to the Prime Minister raising concerns about Helm’s post, and the Campaign Against Antisemitism had urged the police to investigate, saying that while “spouses are entitled to independent views”, the post raised serious questions for Powell and the Government.
The proscription at the centre of the row is itself contested. Palestine Action was proscribed in July 2025 under the Terrorism Act 2000, making membership or support a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison. The Government’s decision triggered a wave of protest, with around 3,700 arrests and about 2,500 charges reported, and those cases await a Supreme Court challenge to the proscription.
Great British PAC reaction
Claire Bullivant, our Chief Executive, said:
“It is profoundly troubling that the man Labour entrusted with negotiating away British sovereignty over the Chagos Islands is now facing questions because his wife has publicly appeared to support an organisation banned under our terrorism laws.
“Of course Jonathan Powell is not responsible for his wife’s opinions, and of course the police must determine whether any law has been broken. But the British public is entitled to ask serious questions about the judgement, transparency and accountability of those operating at the very heart of our national security establishment.
“What makes this all the more galling is the extraordinary contrast in priorities. Labour found the time and political will to negotiate the transfer of the Chagossians’ homeland to Mauritius, yet the Chagossian people themselves have been left fighting through the courts to have their rights properly considered.
“These are British people. They are not bargaining chips. Their homeland is not a diplomatic convenience. And their future should never have been decided over their heads.
“At the Great British PAC, we are not content to issue statements of outrage and then move on to the next headline. We are putting our resources, our legal team and our determination behind the Chagossian people. We have helped take this fight into the courts, and on 5 November we will be back fighting for the opportunity to have their case fully heard.
“While the political establishment congratulates itself on its diplomatic achievements, we will continue standing alongside the people who have the most to lose.
“Britain should be a country that keeps its promises, defends its people and protects its sovereignty. We will not abandon the Chagossians, and we will not allow their voices to be quietly forgotten.”
What we have done, and what comes next
We have stood alongside Chagossian representatives throughout this fight, and we say so because we have done the work.
We have helped fund the Chagossian legal challenges, including the judicial review of the Government’s failure to consult them and the case in the territory’s Supreme Court. On 29 September we committed a further £10,000 to support the next stage of that legal challenge. We have helped establish the Chagossian government-in-exile through a worldwide vote, and we continue to support its work. We have worked alongside the Friends of the British Overseas Territories on the survey of Chagossian opinion that recorded 99.2 per cent support for remaining British among its respondents. We have challenged the Government’s handling of the proposed sovereignty transfer, raised concerns about consultation and self-determination, and questioned the financial and strategic implications of the agreement. And we have campaigned in Parliament and in public, working with members of both Houses to table amendments, put questions to ministers and keep up the pressure.
We do not control the legal proceedings. They are brought by Chagossian claimants, and the arguments are theirs to make. Our role is to help fund the challenge and to make sure their case is heard.
On 5 November 2026 the claimants return to court for a fresh hearing on whether their challenge can proceed. The case, brought by Louis Michel Mandarin and Louis Misley Mandarin against the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, is one of two claims heard together at an oral permission hearing on 28 October 2025. Judgment came on 10 March 2026, more than four months later, when Mrs Justice Stacey refused permission, holding that the claims were not arguable, including because of the nature of the Government’s treaty-making and foreign affairs powers. The claimants appealed, and the Court of Appeal ordered a fresh hearing at which that refusal will be reconsidered.
We will be honest with our supporters about what that hearing is and what it is not. It concerns whether the claim clears the permission threshold to proceed further. It is not a final ruling on sovereignty, on the validity of the treaty or on the substance of the consultation arguments, and a favourable outcome would not by itself unwind the agreement. It would allow the claimants to pursue fuller judicial scrutiny of the Government’s handling of the Chagos agreement. That is worth fighting for, and it is why we are funding it.
The Chagossian claimants have also secured an important legal victory in separate proceedings. On 31 March 2026 the Supreme Court of the British Indian Ocean Territory struck down the law that barred anyone from living on the islands and quashed orders removing Chagossians who had returned, a ruling the territory’s administration is appealing.
The fight that is not over
We are not neutral observers of this dispute, and we do not pretend to be.
We are a campaigning organisation. We believe Britain should keep its promises, defend its people and protect its sovereignty. We believe the Chagossians, who are British citizens, should have the final say over the future of their own homeland, and that no treaty affecting a recognised people should be concluded without them. We believe the full cost of the agreement should be published, not discounted. And we believe the ministers and advisers who took this decision should answer for it.
The police have closed their file on Sarah Helm. But the questions surrounding the Chagos agreement remain unanswered, and they go far beyond the controversy surrounding a single social media post. The real question is whether a British Government can hand away British territory, and the rights of British people, without asking them first. On 5 November 2026, the Chagossians will ask the Court of Appeal for the chance to put that question before a court.
We will be standing with them, as we have from the beginning.
Telegraph – French bond sell off spreads across Europe & Reuters news – Euro dips on French turmoil