James Cleverly blasts 'weak' handover of Chagos despite starting talks

by · Mail Online

James Cleverly was last night at the centre of a blame game over his role in the Chagos Islands being given away.

The Tory leadership hopeful, who was seen as the standout contender after the party conference, blasted Labour’s ­decision to give the archipelago to Mauritius as ‘weak, weak, weak’.

But critics are now questioning his chances of survival – given he was foreign secretary when negotiations began with the China ally in the first place. 

Mr Cleverly announced he had opened talks over the Indian Ocean cluster soon after becoming foreign secretary, saying in November 2022: ‘The UK and Mauritius have decided to begin negotiations on the exercise of sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory/Chagos Archipelago.’

Mr Cleverly held a meeting with Mauritian foreign minister Alan Ganoo the following March and later told MPs there had been ‘four rounds of constructive negotiations on the exercise of sovereignty’.

The Tory leadership hopeful, who was seen as the standout contender after the party conference, blasted Labour’s ­decision to give the archipelago to Mauritius as ‘weak, weak, weak’
But critics are now questioning his chances of survival – given he was foreign secretary when negotiations began with the China ally in the first place (picture from March 2023)

It was only after he was replaced by Lord Cameron last November that the UK blocked further talks over the islands, one of which is home to an important US-UK military base. 

Read More

BREAKING NEWS
Fears that Falklands will be the next to go after UK surrenders control of the Chagos Islands

But Conservatives questioned why he had criticised the move, given he was in charge of talks for a year.

One Tory source told the Mail: ‘He put himself in a strange position with his [comment]. It’s a difficult one for him – it shows how weak he was as foreign secretary.’

The source said the Chagos decision remained in Mr Cleverly’s in-tray even after Liz Truss, the prime minister who appointed him, resigned from her role. They added: ‘It’s not like when Liz Truss was ousted he lost his job, he continued in that position and talks continued up until Cameron took over.’

Another said: ‘Off the back of what most thought was quite an assured conference performance, this has come at the wrong time for him.’

Read More

BREAKING NEWS
Chagossians in UK accuse Keir Starmer of treating them like ­'second-class citizens'

A third insider said: ‘MPs have been saying to us they just don’t know why he tweeted about it. His name is all over this. He just didn’t need to do it but has provided the ammunition for people like [leadership rival] Tom Tugendhat.’

The former security minister has already seized on Mr Cleverly’s involvement, with a campaign source describing the new deal as having been ‘negotiated’ by the former foreign secretary. The Chagos Islands have been British territory since 1814 and have never been owned by Mauritius, which is 1,300 miles away.

However there have been questions over their sovereignty in recent years, with the UN’s International Court of Justice ruling in 2019 that British occupation of the archipelago was unlawful. Ministers under Boris Johnson, who was prime minister at the time, repeatedly insisted that there was ‘no doubt’ about Britain’s control.

After Labour announced it was ceding control of the strategically important archipelago on Thursday, Mr Cleverly condemned the move as ‘weak, weak, weak’ on X
It was only after Cleverly was replaced by Lord Cameron last November that the UK blocked further talks over the island

But he is said to have asked then-foreign secretary Ms Truss to discuss the matter with Mauritian prime minister Pravind Jugnauth in 2021. The pair then met their Mauritian counterparts a year later, with Ms Truss even holding a ‘constructive meeting’ with Mr Jugnauth during her only foreign trip as prime minister.

A blog post by the Friends of the British Overseas Territories group, written earlier this year, suggested it was she who initiated talks over the cluster.

It added that her decision ‘surprised many people’, including Mr Cleverly, ‘who inherited responsibility for the talks when he became foreign secretary’.

However a spokesman for Ms Truss said she ‘was absolutely clear that we would and should never cede the territory’. A source added: ‘For the avoidance of doubt, Boris was not in favour of ceding the territory either.’

Mr Cleverly’s allies have said that responsibility for the hand­over lies solely with the new Government. A source said: ‘There is no point pretending this is anything other than Labour’s deal. It is a sign of Keir Starmer and David Lammy’s awful negotiating.

‘Labour has lost fights with the unions and now lost a strategically important negotiation with the Mauritian government. They don’t know what they’re doing.’