Five Years On

As the UK Chagos Support Association puts it:

On Thursday 10 June 2004 (better known as "Super Thursday" - local election day) royal orders were suddenly passed banning anyone from setting foot on the Chagos islands. The government made sure no one knew about this shocking move until it was too late. Not only did they pass the laws secretly as "orders in council" - requiring no prior consultation or debate - they also buried the move on a day when the news was dominated by the elections. The orders amounted to a new act of exile, overruling the court victory in 2000. This blow was followed a few days later by the refusal of permission to appeal a High Court ruling from October 2003 which denied the Chagossians compensation.

On Thursday 11 May 2006 the High Court overturned the orders in council of 2004, giving the Chagossians back the right of return that they won in 2000. The islanders' solicitor Richard Gifford said: "The British Government has been defeated in its attempt to abolish the right of abode of the islanders after first deporting them in secret 30 years ago...This is the fourth time in five years that Her Majesty's judges have deplored the treatment inflicted upon this fragile community."

But it wouldn't be the last time - the Government appealed against the ruling, and a year later, was defeated again at the Court of Appeal, with the judges calling its treatment of the islanders unlawful and an abuse of power. But even this wasn't the end. The Government has now taken its appeal to the highest court in the land - the House of Lords.

This case is due to be heard on Monday 30 June 2008. The islanders are optimistic that the Lords will decide in their favour, and that they will soon be able to start planning a return home. Already, a resettlement strategy and a major publicity campaign calling for a return home are being prepared with the help of grants from the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust.

And very good luck indeed to them.

These British people from British territory have no voice while we have three parties out of three that despise the Commonwealth (withdrawal from which has been a stated New Right aim since all the way back when it really was the New Right and the David Cameron generation was rising though it) and who believe in a federal Europe under overall American control.

Thankfully, the highest-scoring of those three anti-British parties now reaches not even one tenth of the eligible electorate, yet still does better than the other two put together. Away with them all!