In Humiliating Retreat, Starmer Forced To Pull Chagos Bill After Trump Backlash

Trump wins again – or rather, Europe caves again. On Friday UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer was forced into an abrupt and humiliating retreat after his plan for the Chagos Islands detonated backlash in Washington.

Starmer had been preparing to ram the controversial legislation through the House of Lords on Monday, only for the bill to be yanked late Friday on growing fears it could unravel a 60-year-old US-UK treaty, which is the foundational Cold War-era deal that allows the US to operate the Diego Garcia military base on the Chagos Islands, or what’s known as the British Indian Ocean Territory. 

The chain of events this week kicked off early Tuesday with President Trump’s Truth Social onslaught. Among several geopolitical-related messages, mostly on Greenland, he went after the Starmer government.

Trump took aim at the proposed new deal under which London would surrender sovereignty (to Maritius) while leasing back the strategically critical military base on the islands, including Diego Garcia – where US forces also have a strategic Indian Ocean base, which has been used especially for Middle East operations going back decades. 

Trump attacked the plan to hand sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius as an act of “great stupidity” and “total weakness.” He further took the opportunity to say the move underscored exactly why he wants the United States to take control of Greenland.

“The UK giving away extremely important land is an act of GREAT STUPIDITY, and is another in a very long line of National Security reasons why Greenland has to be acquired. Denmark and its European Allies have to DO THE RIGHT THING,” Trump wrote as his concluding sentence in the message.

The Telegraph late Friday is confirming the U-turn:

Sir Keir Starmer has been forced to pull his Chagos Islands bill in the wake of a US backlash over the deal.

The legislation was expected to be debated in the House of Lords on Monday, but was delayed on Friday night after the Conservatives warned it could violate a 60-year-old treaty with the US that enshrines British sovereignty over the archipelago.

The Foreign Office has been engaged in some last minute scrambling to verify if Trump’s Truth Social message did in fact reflect active US policy:

Asked last night if Mr Trump would be willing to tear up the 1966 treaty and allow the transfer of Chagos to go ahead, the US state department referred back to the president’s criticism on Tuesday when he said: “The UK giving away extremely important land is an act of GREAT STUPIDITY.”

Still, The Telegraph notes that some confusion among British officials remains: “Much depends on whether Mr Trump’s position on the Chagos deal has genuinely changed or – as Sir Keir has claimed – that this was only being used to force a change in Britain’s Greenland stance.”

“If Downing Street tried to press ahead without Washington’s approval, it could face a bruising battle with the US state department,” the report concludes.

Starmer addressed the House of Commons on Wednesday and asserted it was Trump who flipped his policy. “I made out my position on Greenland absolutely clear on Monday and a moment ago. President Trump deployed words on Chagos yesterday that were different to his previous words of welcome and support when I met him in the White House,” he said.

“He deployed those words yesterday for the express purpose of putting pressure on me and Britain in relation to my values and principles on the future of Greenland,” he added.

From a British political commentator: “It is, I admit, a humiliating thing for Britain that the final decision should be in the hands of our American allies. We ought to have put a stop to the whole business ourselves.”

CHAGOS SURRENDER UPDATE
Labour has just pulled Monday’s vote in the House of Lords. The @Conservatives had put out a three-line Whip – an exceptional step in the Upper House, taken perhaps once every three or four years – and ministers evidently concluded that their Bill would… pic.twitter.com/Gji6Kxg3Ot

— Daniel Hannan (@DanielJHannan) January 23, 2026

Conservatives are still warning that rushing the deal for the UK to yield control of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius risks violating international law, with Tory leader Kemi Badenoch having condemned the agreement outright, warning it “cannot progress while this issue remains unsolved.” He has bluntly stated this week, “President Trump is right.” Also, Reform’s Nigel Farage praised the American president for “vetoing” it.