Britain was presented with a profound and urgent wake-up call this week about its standing in the 21st-century world. But the problem, in a political debate consumed by Brexit and Tory leadership speculation, is whether Britain will take any notice at all. The wake-up call was not the UK’s abject last place in the Eurovision song contest, humbling though that was. The far more serious lesson was the one delivered in the United Nations general assembly over the issue of Britain’s continuing occupation of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean, of which by far the most important is the enormous US military base and hub of Diego Garcia.
Britain is adamant about its sovereignty over the islands, which dates from Napoleonic times. Its attitude is an unbending insistence that what we have we hold, even in the post-colonial world. It has fought a rearguard action against domestic courts, which found in favour of the islanders who were deported from the Chagos half a century ago, and international courts, which ruled the occupation illegal. When it was clear the UN would debate a motion this week setting a six-month deadline for Britain to withdraw and for the islands to be unified with Mauritius, British and US diplomats went into overdrive in their efforts to limit the scale of the verdict.
Continue reading...from The Guardian http://bit.ly/30GHLUU
via
0 Comments