In the days before Christmas, the Chagossian First Minister wrote to a wide range of Britain’s most influential left-leaning news organisations and journalists, warning of what he described as an unfolding injustice over the future of the Chagos Islands.
According to those involved, the letters were sent to many of the outlets that routinely claim to champion indigenous rights, anti-colonial causes and international law: the BBC, the Guardian, the Observer, Sky News and others of similar political disposition.
Not one has replied.
The silence is striking. It is also revealing.
At the centre of the dispute is the Labour government’s decision to rush through a treaty transferring sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago from the United Kingdom to Mauritius, a move bitterly opposed by the Chagossian people themselves. Chagossians are British citizens, forcibly removed from their homeland in the 1960s and 70s, and have spent decades fighting to be recognised, consulted and allowed a say over their future. Now, they argue, that future is being decided over their heads once again, this time by a government that styles itself as progressive.
In a detailed letter dated 23 December 2025, Misley Mandarin, recently appointed Interim First Minister of a Chagossian Government in Exile, set out a catalogue of facts that ought, by any normal journalistic standard, to have triggered scrutiny and coverage.
On 2 December, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination took the highly unusual step of invoking its early warning and urgent action procedures. It called on both the UK and Mauritius to suspend ratification of the treaty, explicitly finding that it had been negotiated without the free, prior and informed consent of the Chagossian people and that this failure restricted their right to self-determination.
That intervention should have halted the process. It did not.
On 17 December, the House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee published survey evidence showing that a clear majority of Chagossians wish to remain British and oppose the transfer of sovereignty to Mauritius. Even the committee chair accepted that the survey could not replace a proper government consultation and that responsibility lay squarely with ministers.
Still, ministers pressed on.
Faced with what they describe as systematic exclusion, Chagossians, with the support of the Great British PAC, organised an independently verified election on 13–14 December to establish a Government in Exile, formally announced on 15 December. Mandarin was appointed Interim First Minister. This was not an act of protest or disruption, but a straightforward attempt to create democratic representation where none had been allowed.
Again, there was no meaningful coverage from left-leaning media outlets.
Alongside this political process runs a legal one. With support again from the Great British PAC and their donors, Chagossians launched judicial review proceedings in the summer, seeking to compel the government to consult them before making irreversible decisions. The case was heard on 29 October 2025. The judge repeatedly indicated that a decision would be given promptly, then before Christmas. It has still not been delivered.
Meanwhile, the government has scheduled the Report Stage of the Chagos legislation for 5 January 2026, followed by Third Reading on 7 January, an unusually compressed timetable that risks rendering any later court ruling effectively academic. Lawyers for the Chagossians have warned that delay now threatens to extinguish access to justice altogether.
This combination of international condemnation, parliamentary evidence, an urgent court case, and a democratic mobilisation by an indigenous people, would normally be irresistible to the British Left’s media ecosystem. Yet there has been no sustained questioning of Keir Starmer’s government, no banner headlines, no moral outrage, and no investigative zeal from the ‘Left’.
The contradiction is uncomfortable. Labour’s own election manifesto pledged to defend the sovereignty of Britain’s Overseas Territories. The Chagos Archipelago is one. Chagossians are British citizens. Their clearly expressed wish to remain British does not fit the fashionable anti-colonial narrative, and so it appears to have been quietly ignored.
The question now is unavoidable: why are the self-appointed guardians of justice, consent and indigenous rights looking the other way?
When indigenous peoples demand consultation, the Left is usually loud. When international bodies warn of racial discrimination, the Left is usually attentive. When courts delay in urgent cases, the Left is usually suspicious. But when all of this collides with a Labour government policy, the response has been crickets.
For Chagossians, the message is bleakly familiar. Once again, decisions about their homeland are being rushed through by those in power, while those who claim to speak for the voiceless choose silence. History will eventually judge that silence. For now, it simply exposes it.
READ FIRST MINISTER MISLEY MANDARIN’S LETTER IN FULL:
Dear Editor,
I write to you not in anger, but in disbelief.
For decades, the British Left has claimed to stand for justice, for indigenous peoples, and for the unheard. Yet today, as a profound injustice unfolds in real time, your silence is deafening.
My people, the Chagossians, are watching our homeland handed away to a country that has never owned it, never governed it, and has no rightful claim to it. This is being done without our free, prior, and informed consent. We have not been properly consulted. We have not been asked. We have not been heard.
This is not rhetoric. It is now a matter of record.
On 2 December 2025, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination took the highly unusual step of invoking its early warning and urgent action procedures. It called on both the United Kingdom and Mauritius to suspend ratification of the treaty. The Committee concluded that the agreement had been negotiated without Chagossian consent, that this failure restricts our right to self-determination, and that the United Kingdom must immediately engage with us and guarantee our rights under international law.
This should have stopped everything.
It did not.
On 17 December, the House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee published the results of its own survey of Chagossians. A clear majority stated that they wish to remain British and oppose the transfer of sovereignty to Mauritius. Even then, the Committee’s Chair acknowledged that this could not substitute for a full Government consultation and that responsibility now lies squarely with ministers.
Still, nothing seems to have changed.
Faced with the continued absence of any self-determination process, Chagossians around the world took the only step left open to them. Between 13 and 14 December, an independently organised and verified election was held to establish a Chagossian Government in Exile, formally announced on 15 December. I was appointed Interim First Minister not as an act of defiance, but as an act of democratic survival.
Why is this not news? Why is an indigenous people organising peacefully, democratically, and transparently to assert their existence met with indifference?
We are not asking for rebellion.
We are not asking for disruption.
We are asking for the right to choose our future.
The Chagossian people wish to remain British. That wish may be inconvenient to a fashionable narrative, but it is no less valid for that. Honouring it would save the British taxpayer a vast sum, preserve the environment and stability around one of the most important strategic bases in the world, and align Britain’s actions with the principles it claims to uphold.
Instead, our fate is being rushed through Parliament while our attempt to secure consultation through the courts is being overtaken by delay.
With the support of the Great British PAC, Chagossians initiated Judicial Review proceedings in the summer, seeking an order requiring the Government to consult the Chagossian people before making irreversible decisions about our homeland. We sought urgency. The hearing did not take place until October.
At the hearing on 29 October 2025, the judge, Mrs Justice Stacey, expressly stated that she would give her decision that day. When a judgment was not delivered, the judge then indicated it would be handed down the following week, and later stated it would be given before Christmas. Despite these repeated, specific indications, and the judge’s acknowledgement of the importance of a timely decision, the decision remains outstanding and has been repeatedly delayed.
The hearing on 29 October was intensive. Argument lasted for over five hours, during which detailed submissions were made on the permission threshold and the merits relevant to permission. The permission threshold for judicial review is a low one, and prompt resolution is essential to preserve access to justice. Given the passage of time since the hearing, there is an obvious and serious concern that the issues are no longer fresh, and that delay risks undermining the purpose of oral argument in a matter of acknowledged urgency.
We are now told that the decision will be given in the new year and that we assume means when court resumes on 12 January. By that point, however, the Government has already scheduled the Report Stage for 5 January 2026, followed by the Third and Final Reading on 7 January, an unusually compressed timetable. If the Government chooses to conclude the parliamentary process before consultation can occur, the practical value of any later ruling is gravely diminished. A legal process intended to secure our right to be consulted risks being rendered academic by the passage of time.
Justice delayed is justice denied.
Our lawyers have warned us plainly that continued delay risks the case failing to achieve anything at all. The urgency is obvious. The consequences are irreversible. And yet, again, silence.
Something feels wrong. When the issues are so plainly urgent, when an entire people’s right to be consulted is at stake, why has the passage of months been allowed to drain the process of its meaning?
I ask you directly: why is there so little scrutiny of this delay? Why is no one asking whether access to justice is being quietly lost through inaction? Why has there been so little reporting on the United Nations’ call for the United Kingdom to suspend ratification of the treaty, or on the House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee’s finding that the Government must undertake a full and proper consultation with the Chagossian people?
Labour’s own General Election manifesto promised on page 120 to defend the sovereignty of Britain’s Overseas Territories. The Chagos Archipelago is such a territory. Chagossians are British citizens. How is this contradiction not being examined?
If this were any other indigenous community, demanding consultation, consent, and a referendum on their future, you would be amplifying their voices. Is our failure that we remain loyal to Britain? That we support the rule of law? That we do not conform to the preferred script of anti-colonial theatre?
History will judge this moment harshly. History shows that some injustices are ignored for years before the country is finally forced to confront them. If that is to be the fate of this case, then I will do what others, such as those who exposed the Post Office scandal, were compelled to do: devote my life to ensuring that the truth is heard and that justice is eventually done.
History will ask who spoke, who questioned power, and who looked away while a people were written out of their own story by procedure, haste, and silence.
I ask you to look again.
I ask you to ask why justice is being delayed.
And I ask you who benefits from that delay.
Because if justice can be quietly suffocated by timing and indifference, then none of us should feel secure.
My direct line is 07484 871027.
Yours sincerely,
Misley Mandarin
First Minister
Website: www.BIOTChagos.com
Email: FirstMinister@BIOTChagos.com
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.
There has been a similarly strange lack of scrutiny, outrage – and difficulty publishing – regarding diminished protection to what is arguably the most important Marine Protected Area on the planet.
Might there be a media injunction to attempt to cover-up the human rights and conservation catastrophe under some perception of a national security or other emergency?
Perhaps some natural resources are so precious – and so controversial to exploit – that secret deals might be needed? Critical minerals, maybe?
Or could conservation and ‘green’ organisations be conflicted, as the article implies, by what they see as higher ideals and their mistaken understanding of decolonisation?