Well, well, well. It turns out that an international judge who ruled against Britain on the Chagos Islands has also, er, called for the UK to pay over £18 trillion in slavery reparations. Patrick Robinson is a Jamaican judge who has previously served on the International Court of Justice – and was one of the judges who, in 2019, agreed the UK should hands over the archipelago ‘as rapidly as possible’. How very curious…
As reported by the Telegraph, Robinson is a big supporter of Britain paying reparations to African and Caribbean countries for slavery – and even helped write a recent United Nations report that proposed the UK should give away over £18 trillion as part of a £87 trillion payment from ex-slaveholding countries. In fact, at the time, the lawyer said the sum was an ‘underestimation’ of the pain inflicted by Britain during the slave trade – and he insisted to the Beeb that ‘once a state has committed a wrongful act, it’s obliged to pay reparations’. Goodness.
The news comes as it transpires that lawyers for Mauritius have argued that the UK would be partaking in ‘decolonisation’ by ceding sovereignty of the Chagos Islands. And, Mr S would note, the ICJ ruling that the islands should be transferred to Mauritius, is one of the primary arguments that supports Britain’s relinquishing of the archipelago.
As Steerpike reported at the start of the month, rumours of the deal that Sir Keir Starmer was proposing – to offer out the Chagos Islands for billions and give ‘complete sovereignty’ of US naval base isle Diego Garcia to Mauritius – sparked outrage. Reform leader Nigel Farage took to Twitter to blast the PM, writing: ‘This is a dreadful decision by Starmer. Our relationship will be in tatters when the USA wakes up to what our Prime Minister has done’. Meanwhile shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick branded it the ‘worst deal in history’. Will yet more money be offered to Mauritius to take the islands back? Watch this space…
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