Labour’s justification for giving away the Chagos Islands has been torn to shreds in Parliament, after ministers admitted their much-cited “legal threat” was based on a treaty clause that the UK is explicitly exempt from.
Defence Minister Luke Pollard incorrectly told MPs on Monday that the Government had no choice but to pursue the £35 billion giveaway with Mauritius, claiming the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) left Britain vulnerable to “binding rulings” that could interfere with national security.
He warned of possible legal proceedings “within weeks” that might restrict access to Diego Garcia and even compromise the UK’s use of the electromagnetic spectrum.
But this excuse has been exposed as absolutely baseless. Under Article 298 of UNCLOS, the UK, like many other states, has long held a sovereign exemption from disputes concerning military activities. This exemption, written in black and white, means that arbitration panels simply cannot compel Britain to hand over control of military operations, including access to and defence of Diego Garcia.
Even more damning, the exemption gives countries themselves wide discretion to define what counts as “military activity.” The United States has insisted this determination is not subject to external review, and Britain has the same protection. Labour therefore cannot credibly claim that UNCLOS posed a real threat to the UK base.
While some tribunals have tried to narrow the scope of the military exemption in unrelated cases, these are legal outliers, and none overturn the fundamental safeguard Britain already enjoys. Experts note the only crack in this armour came from a recent ITLOS ruling in the Ukraine–Russia dispute, which has no bearing on Chagos.
Yet Labour chose to peddle the myth of a looming legal disaster. Tory MPs were quick to pounce. Former Defence Minister Mark Francois declared:
“Today, the Government’s legal case collapsed under close scrutiny. They finally revealed that the so-called ‘legal threat’ is based on UNCLOS — from which we in Britain already have a clear opt-out for disputes concerning military activities. The whole case is a sham, as Parliament has today discovered.”
The embarrassment is compounded by Labour’s own previous admissions that rulings of the International Telecommunication Union cannot interfere with the UK’s use of the electromagnetic spectrum, flatly contradicting Pollard’s claims.
The result is a picture of a government clutching at straws, trying to justify an extraordinary surrender of sovereign territory with a legal argument that doesn’t withstand even basic scrutiny. MPs and campaigners are now demanding answers: if not UNCLOS, what was the “grave threat” Labour has repeatedly refused to specify?
The suspicion in Westminster is growing that there never was one.
Keir Starmer has questions to answer.
