Confusion over Chagos Islands deal as Foreign Office denies handover ‘paused’

Minister ‘misspoke’ by telling MPs UK was ‘pausing for discussions with our American counterparts’, officials say

Plans to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius are still on track, the UK government has insisted, after a minister caused confusion by telling MPs that the deal was “paused”.

Hamish Falconer, a Foreign Office minister and former diplomat, was speaking on Wednesday as the deal came under increasing pressure from opposition parties in the UK and from Donald Trump.

In a bombshell intervention, the US president said Keir Starmer 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 on one of the islands, Diego Garcia.

In response to an urgent question in the Commons by the Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, Falconer said: “We have a process going through parliament in relation to the treaty.” He added: “We will bring that back to parliament at the appropriate time. We are pausing for discussions with our American counterparts.”

With the government scrambling to contain the confusion created by Falconer’s comments, sources in the Foreign Office said he had “misspoke”. A spokesperson said: “There is no pause. We have never set a deadline. Timings will be announced in the usual way.”

The intervention was immediately pounced on by the shadow foreign secretary, Priti Patel, who is in the US meeting political figures about the deal, and who described it as “an appalling act of betrayal”.

“I am in Washington lobbying senior administration figures on this issue and I am pleased the UK government has been forced to pause the legislation,” she said.

“But ministers must go further: now it is time for Keir Starmer to face reality and kill this shameful surrender once and for all before it does any more damage.”

Speaking earlier, Falconer made it clear that the UK government was taking notice of Trump’s intervention on social media – which went against the grain not only of what he had previously said but against US government policy.

While the US president had previously criticised the plan, which is backed by the state department, earlier this month he described it as the “best” deal Starmer could make in the circumstances.

Falconer told MPs: “The view of the United States president may well have changed but the treaty has not.”

While the bill cleared its third reading in the Commons last month, members of the House of Lords say they had unofficially been told earlier this month that it was due to come before them this week.

However, those plans appear to have been pulled after Trump’s intervention on Truth Social on 18 February, when he posted that Starmer was “making a big mistake”.

Farage used his urgent question on Wednesday to force the issue on to the agenda after he had been accused of “performing Maga stunts” by claiming the British government had stopped him from travelling to the Chagos Islands on a humanitarian mission.

The Reform UK leader said he had flown to the Maldives to join a delegation bringing aid to four Chagossians who are trying to establish a settlement on one of the archipelago’s islands to protest against Britain’s plans to transfer control of the territory to Mauritius.

In a video posted on X on Saturday, Farage claimed the UK government had blocked his trip to the territory, which cannot be entered without a valid permit.

Farage said: “The British government are applying pressure on the president and the government of the Maldives to do everything within their power to stop me getting on that boat and going to the Chagos Islands.