UK politics live: Furious Chagos Islands row erupts as Tories accused of risking losing key air base in courts

More Tory leadership candidates have joined Robert Jenrick in criticising the British Indian Ocean Territory decision.

James Cleverly said: “Weak, weak, weak! Labour lied to get into office. Said they’d be whiter than white, said they wouldn’t put up taxes, said they’d stand up to the EU, said that they be patriotic. All lies!”

Fellow rival Tom Tugendhat said: “This is a shameful retreat undermining our security and leaving our allies exposed.”

He claimed the Foreign Office had “negotiated against Britain’s interest” and it was “disgraceful that these negotiations started under our watch”.

Mr Tugendhat added: “Lord Cameron rightly blocked them only to see it back under David Lammy’s complete failure of leadership.”

But the Tories were responsible for starting the negotiations over the deal when they were in power.

Former foreign secretary Mr Cleverly opened talks on the sovereignty of the archipelago in November 2022.

Boris Johnson has branded his former chief of staff Dominic Cummings as “weird” and compared him to a “homicidal robot” as he blamed him for his downfall as prime minister.

In his new autobiography Unleashed, the Mr Johnson charted the collapse of his relationship with Cummings from the high point of them working to win the EU referendum in 2016.

But he has alleged that Cummings lack of gratitude for his efforts to defend him over potentially breaking lockdown rules with an infamous trip to Barnard Castle in 2020 led to the former chief of staff using Partygate as a form of revenge.

Our political correspondent David Maddox has the full story below:

Chagos islanders have criticised Labour’s deal to return most territory of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, ending a long-standing dispute.

They have slammed the governments for being “excluded” from the negotiating table during the deal.

In a statement, Chagossian Voices said: “[We] deplore the exclusion of the Chagossian community from the negotiations which have produced this statement of intent concerning the sovereignty of our homeland.

“Chagossians have learned this outcome from the media and remain powerless and voiceless in determining our own future and the future of our homeland.

“The views of Chagossians, the indigenous inhabitants of the islands, have been consistently and deliberately ignored and we demand full inclusion in the drafting of the treaty.”

The envoy behind the Chagos Islands-Mauritius deal has said Chagossians were treated “shamefully” when they were removed from the islands in the 1960s.

Jonathan Powell told BBC Radio 4’s World at One: “What we did in the 60s, what Britain did, was wrong. We treated them shamefully.

“And that’s why previous governments have given them British nationality, British citizenship, and so on.

“So we setting up a fund that will be administered by the Mauritian government because this is now Mauritian territory, so we can’t say who goes back.”

But under the deal, Chagossians are not able to return to Diego Garcia, the UK-US military base in the Pacific Ocean.

He added: “Many of Chagossians are either Mauritian citizens or have the right to Mauritian citizenship.

“Going back to the islands … it’s going to be difficult. They’re very remote and very hard to live on, and the life there before was very difficult.

“But yes, we are committing ourselves to help on visits, and we’re committing to a fund to help on resettlement if that’s possible.”

A Labour source has hit back at the Tories’ after the fierce criticism from leadership candidates over the government’s decision to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.

They said: “Labour inherited a legal car crash that could have left this vital military base in the hands of the court, damaging the UK and the US’ national security.”

In 2021, the Conservative government was urged to end its “unlawful occupation” of the Chagos Islands by the prime minister of Mauritius after Britain’s claim to sovereignty was rejected by the UN court.

But the Foreign Office argued it had not been party of the court proceedings so it was under no obligation to comply with the ruling.

The UK then underwent a long period of negotiations with Mauritius to settle the issue.

The source added: “James Cleverly and the Tories tried and failed in 11 rounds of negotiations, putting our national security interests at risk.

“The new government did the deal to secure the base and shut off a potential illegal migration route.

“You wouldn’t get the US President applauding the deal if it put US interests at risk.”

The BBC presenter accidentally sent the former PM her notes: cue, cancelled interview. And Ryan Coogan has a few confessions of his own…

Boris Johnson has branded his former chief of staff Dominic Cummings as “weird” and compared him to a “homicidal robot” as he blamed him for his downfall as prime minister.

In his new autobiography Unleashed, the Mr Johnson charted the collapse of his relationship with Cummings from the high point of them working to win the EU referendum in 2016.

But he has alleged that Cummings lack of gratitude for his efforts to defend him over potentially breaking lockdown rules with an infamous trip to Barnard Castle in 2020 led to the former chief of staff using Partygate as a form of revenge.

Our political editor David Maddox has the full story below: