Andy Burnham seeks US support for revised Chagos Islands sovereignty deal

Original terms gave Mauritius sovereignty and leased Diego Garcia for 99 years

Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Britain was discussing with its US friends how to recast the Chagos Islands sovereignty agreement after President Donald Trump opposed the original treaty. Speaking to The Economist on his return journey from Antigua, Burnham said he wanted “a new discussion” with Washington over the disputed islands, which are home to the Diego Garcia military base.

Former Prime Minister Keir Starmer struck the original agreement, and his government signed the treaty. It would transfer sovereignty over the islands to Mauritius while keeping control of the joint UK-US base on Diego Garcia under a 99-year lease. Under the agreement, Mauritius would have received £165m for three years and £120m a year from the fourth year.

Trump’s opposition left the agreement in limbo. Speaking in September after a bilateral meeting with Burnham in New York, Trump said: “I don’t support it – I think it’s a terrible deal.”

Burnham said the two governments were trying to find an arrangement that met American concerns. “We are in discussion with our US friends to see how we might recast the arrangement that better meets their concerns,” he said. According to the Guardian, Washington said the agreement could instead be modelled on America’s Greenland deal with Denmark. Burnham said the UK was also looking at that agreement as a possible source of a solution: “We look at the Greenland deal and obviously there was a solution reached there. Now, maybe there is something there we can take from that to see if there’s a solution that works in relation to Diego Garcia.”

While Trump was criticizing the Chagos agreement, he reached a separate agreement with Denmark over Greenland after months of threats toward the island. Under that deal, Greenland will remain a Danish territory, but the US will be allowed to develop a significant military presence there, while its adversaries will be banned from building their own bases on the island. Burnham said there might be something in that solution for Diego Garcia.

Wes Streeting, the defence secretary, said the British government had suspended payments to Mauritius while the UK and US worked on a compromise. “This deal as it is currently constituted can’t go ahead without American support. So we have to get a deal to a place where it commands American support as well as the agreement of the government of Mauritius and our government,” he told the BBC.

Burnham attended the Commonwealth heads of government summit in Antigua. Much of the trip was dominated by demands from Caribbean countries for Britain to pay reparations for slavery, but Burnham said his government had helped move the issue on by opening the possibility of a government apology. “I think we have done something, we’ve achieved something out there,” he said.

Burnham also said he would host his own international summit next year when the G20 meets in Manchester. He said Russian President Vladimir Putin would be barred because sanctions applied to leading figures in the Russian administration. “There are sanctions against leading figures in the [Russian] administration,” he said. “[Putin] will not be coming because of an outstanding sanction.”

Burnham said Chinese President Xi Jinping would be welcome. He said Xi visited Manchester in 2015 and that they had a good conversation, with Xi warm about the visit. Burnham said Xi would return 12 years later and see a big difference in Manchester, some of which had been achieved in partnership with China.

Over the next few weeks, Burnham will prepare for the EU summit in Brussels. He said the summit would be a moment for the UK to begin considering its longer-term relationship with the bloc and whether it should rejoin.

Burnham will also pull together his “10-year plan,” which aides said would set out his long-term vision for how the UK should change over the next decade, including public control over key parts of the economy. Burnham said the plan, promised for this year, could be delayed until December or January. “We may go into the new year, to be honest … December or January. I think we will need to leave that open,” he said. He denied recent reports that it would be relatively brief and lacking in detail, saying the plan would be substantial and compelling because he was weaving different threads together.

For the Chagos negotiations, Burnham said the government was very engaged and working hard, but that the task remained challenging: “We’re working hard on it, but it is challenging.”