Officials accept that time has run out to pass law after US dropped its support for plan
The UK government has been forced to shelve its legislation to hand the Chagos Islands back to Mauritius, after the US dropped its support for the agreement.
On Friday, UK government officials acknowledged that they had run out of time to pass legislation within the current parliamentary session, which ends in the coming weeks.
The latest setback in the UK’s push to hand the Chagos Islands back to Mauritius, which hosts a joint US-UK Diego Garcia military base, is a sign of the worsening US-UK relations after Donald Trump’s heavy criticism of Keir Starmer over his handling of the Iran war.
The US president has previously criticised the plan, which is backed by the US state department, telling Starmer he was “making a big mistake” by handing sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius in exchange for the UK and US being allowed to continue using their airbase.
