The rent for the Chagos Archipelago in the center of the Indian Ocean will cost the United Kingdom almost 35 billion British pounds ($46.7 billion), which is 10 times more than promised by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported.
In May, announcing in parliament the signing of an agreement with Mauritius to transfer sovereignty over the archipelago, which implies the retention of a British-American military base on the island of Diego Garcia, Starmer promised that over the next 99 years the total cost of the rent, adjusted for inflation, would be 3.4 billion British pounds. However, as the article points out, in nominal terms, that is, at current prices and without taking into account price increases, the cost to London will amount to 34.7 billion pounds.
Such costs may raise questions for Starmer about whether he has misled parliament. As the head of government said at the time, this is comparable to the annual cost of maintaining an aircraft carrier. “Daily Telegraph“ notes that in reality, this money could have built 10 new aircraft carriers, such as the flagship of the British fleet HMS Queen Elizabeth.
Chagos was a British colony along with the rest of Mauritius, but in 1965 London separated the archipelago into a separate administrative unit. Three years later, the republic gained independence, but Chagos remained in the possession of the kingdom. In 1966, the United States leased Diego Garcia and built an air base on it. All 1,500 inhabitants of the archipelago were deported.
In 2017, Mauritius managed to get the International Court of Justice to issue an expert opinion on this issue. In February 2019, such an opinion was received in favor of Mauritius, which created a threat to the further operation of the base. According to Starmer, the transfer of Chagos to the republic allows us to guarantee the smooth operation of the base.
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