Andy Burnham has said he wants to “recast” the UK’s deal to cede control of the Chagos Islands after resistance from Washington, which said the agreement could instead be modelled on America’s Greenland deal with Denmark.
The prime minister told the Economist he wanted “a new discussion” with the US over the disputed islands, which are home to the Diego Garcia military base.
The original deal, which was struck by the former prime minister Keir Starmer and would have given sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius, has been in limbo since Donald Trump made clear he opposed it.
Burnham said: “We are in discussion with our US friends to see how we might recast the arrangement that better meets their concerns.
“We look at the Greenland deal and obviously there was a solution reached there. Now, maybe there is something there we can take from that to see if there’s a solution that works in relation to Diego Garcia. But that is something that we’re very engaged on. We’re working hard on it, but it is challenging.”
Starmer’s government signed a treaty to transfer sovereignty to Mauritius while keeping control of the joint UK-US base on Diego Garcia under a 99-year lease. Under the agreement, Mauritius would have received £165m for three years and £120m a year from the fourth year.
The agreement was thrown into uncertainty when Trump voiced his opposition to it. Speaking in September after a bilateral meeting with Burnham in New York, the president said: “I don’t support it – I think it’s a terrible deal.”
Wes Streeting, the defence secretary, has since said the British government had suspended payments to Mauritius while the UK and US worked on a compromise.
He told the BBC: “This deal as it is currently constituted can’t go ahead without American support. So we have to get a deal to a place where it commands American support as well as the agreement of the government of Mauritius and our government.”
While Trump was expressing his unhappiness at the Chagos deal, he was striking an agreement with Denmark over Greenland, after months of threats towards the island.
Under that agreement, Greenland will remain a Danish territory but the US will be allowed to develop a significant military presence there, while its adversaries will be banned from building their own bases on the island.
Burnham was speaking on his return journey from Antigua, where he attended the Commonwealth heads of government (Chogm) summit. Much of the trip was dominated by demands from Caribbean countries for Britain to pay reparations for slavery, but Burnham insisted his government had helped move the issue on by opening up the possibility of a government apology.
“I think we have done something, we’ve achieved something out there,” he said.
Burnham will host his own international summit next year when the G20 meets in Manchester. Burnham said the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, would be barred from that meeting, though the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, would be welcome.
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“There are sanctions against leading figures in the [Russian] administration,” he said. “[Putin] will not be coming because of an outstanding sanction.”
Asked about Xi’s presence, he said: “President Xi visited Manchester in 2015, and I spoke to him and we had a good conversation about that, and he was warm about that visit. And obviously he’s coming back 12 years later and he will see a big difference in Manchester. And some of that has been done in partnership with China.”
Over the next few weeks, Burnham will prepare for the EU summit in Brussels, which the prime minister says will be a moment for the UK to begin thinking about its longer-term relationship with the bloc and whether it should rejoin.
He will also pull together his “10-year plan”, which aides say will lay out his long-term vision for how the UK should change over the next decade, including public control over key parts of the economy.
Burnham said the plan, which had been promised for this year, could be delayed until January. He denied recent reports that it would be relatively brief and lacking in detail. “It will be substantial, and it will also be – well, in my view, it will be compelling because I am weaving the different threads together,” he said.
“We may go into the new year, to be honest … December or January. I think we will need to leave that open.”
