Keir Starmer was today cleared to announce the UK's 'surrender' of the Chagos Islands after a judge threw out an 11th-hour attempt to block it.
The Prime Minister's plan to announce this morning that he was handing the archipelago to Mauritius was thrown into chaos after a High Court injection was made in the dead of night.
Two Chagossian women born on Diego Garcia - now home to a major UK/US airbase - are fighting the handover as part of their bid to be allowed to return home.
But after an emergency hearing this morning Mr Justice Chamberlain ruled that the handover of the islands, formally the British Indian Ocean Territory, can go ahead.
Dismissing the injunction, he told the court: ‘The government had made clear that once the agreement is signed, it will be the subject of a Bill in Parliament. That will give Parliament time to consider the agreement and, if the view is taken in Parliament that the deal is an undesirable one, then it will not succeed.’
