Pave The Way

And now for some proper news. Jamie Doward writes:

A decades-long battle by the exiled people of the Chagos Islands to be allowed to return home will reach its conclusion on Wednesday. 

The supreme court, the country’s highest, will deliver its verdict on whether an earlier ruling by the House of Lords banning the Chagossians from living in their homeland was legal. 

If the decision is overturned it will pave the way for their return to the atoll in the Indian Ocean 45 years after they were removed. 

Some went to the Seychelles, others to Mauritius.

A sizeable number settled in Crawley in Sussex, simply because it was near Gatwick airport where they landed.

It is expected that many of the Chagossians and their supporters will be present for the historic verdict. 

In 2000, the high court ruled that the Chagossians could return to 65 of the islands, but not to the main island of Diego Garcia, which is used as a military base by the United States under a deal agreed with the British government. 

About 1,500 islanders were removed to make way for the base in 1971. 

Under a secret deal, the US agreed to contribute to the costs of establishing the base and provide support for the UK’s nuclear missile programme.

In 2004, the government nullified the high court’s decision by invoking the royal prerogative. 

But this was overturned three years later when judges rejected the government’s argument that the royal prerogative was immune from scrutiny. 

In 2008 the government won an appeal in the House of Lords, which ruled that the exiles could not return. 

But lawyers for the Chagossians claim that the law lords’ decision relied heavily on a 2002 feasibility study into resettlement that was flawed.

Celebrities such as the broadcaster and adventurer Ben Fogle have backed the Chago islanders’ cause.

He has said their treatment by the government has made me “ashamed to be British.”