CHAGOS: Why Did I Help Organise and Fund a Judicial Review If the Decision Can Be Made Too Late to Matter?

Something is not sitting right. An urgent Judicial Review, funded, prepared, and argued in full, drifts without decision, while the Labour Government quietly accelerates an irreversible deal through Parliament over Christmas and New Year. Deadlines slip. Timetables tighten. Silence fills the gaps. And as the clock runs down, justice risks arriving too late to matter. Great British PAC CEO, Claire Bullivant asks why, and who benefits when delay does the work that refusal never had to…

About a year ago, I realised how little I truly knew about the Chagos Islands.

Like most people, I had a vague awareness that there was a military base somewhere in the Indian Ocean. I did not understand just how vital it was. Then I looked at a globe. And once you do that, the truth becomes impossible to ignore.

There is nothing else on that side of the planet that serves British and American military interests in the way Diego Garcia does. It is where our nuclear submarines are serviced, where our warships dock, where our aircraft are staged. It is not symbolic. It is not theoretical. It is one of the most strategically important military installations in the world.

It is the only place on that side of the planet where the West can project power, deter adversaries, and uphold global security.

So you can imagine my astonishment when I discovered that Keir Starmer’s government intends to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, a country that has deepened its ties with China in recent years, only to rent back the very base we already control, at a cost that could ultimately exceed £35 billion to British taxpayers.

I could not make it make sense.

Why would Britain give away sovereignty over a territory of such strategic importance? Why would we pay vast sums to lease back something we already possess? Why would any responsible government do this at a time when public finances are stretched to breaking point?

Unable to get answers, I did what citizens are supposed to do in a democracy. I asked questions.

I wrote to Keir Starmer and David Lammy demanding transparency. The letter was clear and was signed by senior figures from across politics like Liz Truss, Nigel Farage, Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Suella Braverman, Baroness Hoey, Ben Habib and Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg. The letter warned of risks to national security. It questioned the eye-watering cost to taxpayers. It highlighted the complete absence of consultation with the Chagossian people themselves. It asked, simply, for prudence, debate, and openness.

We received no meaningful response.

So I wrote again. More names were added. Even more senior figures put their reputations behind the call for scrutiny. Still nothing.

By this point, it had become obvious that something deeply wrong was happening. Deals of this magnitude are not meant to be done in silence. They are not meant to be rushed. And they are certainly not meant to exclude the very people whose homeland is being decided for them.

Then I met the Chagossians themselves.

I was not prepared for what they told me.

They spoke of the late 1960s and early 1970s, when a previous Labour government forcibly removed them from their islands. Their animals were rounded up and killed. Their belongings were thrown into the sea. Families were herded onto boats and dumped in Mauritius, the Seychelles, or Britain, with no support and no right of return.

I cried listening to them.

And yet, what moved me most was this: despite everything, these people want to remain British. Those that live here have come to love Britain. Many have served in the British Army. They are proud of their connection to this country. They are proud to be British. Britain, they told me, had been good to them. Mauritius had not.

That is why I decided to fight for them.

Through the Great British PAC, we helped raise the money for a Judicial Review. By early summer, the funding was in place thanks to PAC donors and a large donation from Ben Habib. Our superb barrister, James Tumbridge, produced an extraordinary and exhaustive submission, more than 1,600 pages setting out the law, the history, and why the Chagossians are entitled to the most basic democratic right of all, self determination.

Then came the delays.

This was meant to be an expedited case. The first judge who granted permission made that clear. Yet soon afterwards, progress slowed and then stalled altogether. Questions went unanswered. Communication dried up. Then the court closed for the summer.

We waited.

Autumn came. We waited again.

Eventually, at the end of October, we finally had our day in court before Mrs Justice Stacey. We were told a decision would be given that day.

It was not.

Then we were told the following week. Then November. Then before Christmas.

Now, we are told it will probably be 12 January, when the court reopens after Christmas.

But by then, Parliament may already have completed the decisive stages of ratification. Keir Starmer has strangely set the Report Stage for 5 January and the Third and Final Reading for 7 January.

So I ask, plainly and clearly, what was the point of the Judicial Review if the process it was meant to safeguard is allowed to conclude before a decision is handed down?

Why did we work so hard and pay for access to justice if justice is endlessly deferred? These questions demand answers.

Why is this Labour Government rushing this through over Christmas and New Year, scheduling the Report Stage for the first day peers return, when many are still away? Why were amendment deadlines set for 23 December, when Parliament was running on fumes?

Why press ahead when the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has explicitly called on the United Kingdom to suspend ratification?

Why ignore the House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee, which found that Chagossians want to remain British and that a full and proper consultation is still required?

Of course none of this proves conspiracy. But it does demand explanation.

Because when timing, haste, and silence all align, trust begins to erode.

The Great British PAC has since helped the Chagossians establish a Government in Exile, not in anger, not in rebellion, but because they are terrified of being written out of history by procedure and delay.

And I cannot escape the feeling that something fundamental has gone wrong when a democratic state moves faster than the law designed to hold it to account.

Justice delayed is justice denied. And if we allow this to pass without outrage, without scrutiny, and without answers, then the question is no longer just about the Chagos Islands.

It is about what kind of country we are becoming.

And so I am left asking questions that no citizen should have to ask.

Why is this government so determined to rush a decision of such magnitude through Parliament when everyone is on the festive break, when scrutiny is weakest and attention is elsewhere? Why does Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, appear so unconcerned that an indigenous people are being denied consultation, that a United Nations warning has been brushed aside, and that a Judicial Review is being overtaken by political haste?

And when the courts themselves fall silent, who is a citizen meant to turn to?

If a judgment is delayed again and again, despite acknowledged urgency, despite clear consequences, despite the risk that justice will arrive too late to matter, what explanation is owed? And to whom? There is no obvious avenue of accountability. No clear mechanism for complaint that does not itself risk being futile or inappropriate. One is left with nothing but questions, and a growing sense of unease.

This is not an accusation. It is something worse. It is the slow erosion of confidence in a system that is supposed to protect the powerless from the powerful.

I helped organise a Judicial Review because I believed in the rule of law. I believed that when citizens raise money, assemble evidence, and follow the process, the process would at least meet them halfway. I did not expect justice to be quietly outrun by a government timetable.

Yet here we are.

A Prime Minister forcing a deal through Parliament at speed. A court decision endlessly deferred. An indigenous people pushed so far to the margins that they have formed a government in exile simply to exist. And no one willing to explain why this all feels so wrong.

I feel sick that this is the state we are in.

Because when justice depends on timing, and timing is controlled by those with the most to gain, then justice is no longer blind. It is merely late. And by the time it arrives, it may no longer matter at all.

That is not the Britain I thought I was fighting for. But I will not give up.

This matters, and it still can be stopped. Members of Parliament and peers now face a clear choice, to attend, to scrutinise, and to vote with conscience when this deal comes before them on 7 January.

The Chagossian people must have a say. Anything less would be a betrayal not only of them, but of the principles Britain claims to stand for.

By Claire Bullivant, CEO, Great British PAC.

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Main Image: The Chagos Islands are home to Diego Garcia, a UK / U.S. military base of significant strategic importance, particularly for operations in the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa. Scene Camera Operator: PH2 Frazier. Copyright: Public Domain.