Dr Tania Mathias is an NHS doctor. She served as the Conservative MP for Twickenham from 2015 to 2017, and was the parliamentary candidate for Maidenhead in 2024.
The Labour government’s handover of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius has rightly resulted in concerns from many Conservatives about our security and the threat of China’s Cold War extending to any of the islands aside from Diego Garcia in the archipelago. The Conservative Environment Network group has also rightly pointed out the importance of these islands for our knowledge and research on climate change.
Yet, we as Conservatives, are neglecting to firstly prioritise and defend the rights of British citizens who have been repeatedly let down by successive governments – Labour and Conservative – since the late 1960s.
The late John Pilger was an advocate for the truth about the Chagos Islands and the forced expulsion of 2,000 Chagossians in the 1960s. In his 2004 documentary Stealing a Nation He films shattering witness reports and reveals government and Foreign Office cover-ups. The documentary incorporates information that has been in newspapers and documents released, after thirty years, from the Foreign Office.
The Chagos Islands’ story is one of the forced expulsion of a population by the UK government; the cruel gassing of pets that belonged to the islanders; and the lack of help for the evicted islanders when they were subsequently given homes in Mauritius who had no water, electricity, or sewage system.
As a backbench MP, nearly ten years ago, I advocated for resettlement of the Chagossians. My Conservative colleague Henry Smith MP – who represented Crawley at that time – led many of those debates and discussions.
My particular interest was as a result of being approached by a constituent who was concerned about the situation of Chagos islanders. This constituent was not a Chagossian and he had never visited the islands. He was, however, ashamed about our country’s history in the archipelago: how the UK had mistreated the islanders and had not yet made reparations or enabled resettlement.
When elected as an MP I believed that our Conservative Government at that time could finally address these injustices. I was even encouraged by positive statements of Ministers in Parliament responding to the challenges about the overdue and urgent need for resettlement for the Chagossians. But the statements did not result in action before the end of that Parliament.
Recently, I, like many Conservative activists, spent time at our recent Conference in Birmingham and agreed with the Conservative leadership contenders and fellow activists when we talked of our core Conservative values. Many times I heard phrases such as the importance of “freedom”, “personal choice”, “respect for individuals”, and “promoting aspiration”.
We talked at the conference of being proud of our support of Ukrainian and Hong Kong citizens. So why are we so meek when – just a few days after Conference – we are told that this government is yet again neglecting to support the rights of individuals who have been – according to the UK High Court ruling in 2000 – illegally removed from their homes? These individuals have the right to have British citizenship and the number of Chagossians affected is around the same number as the population of the Falkland Islands.
In his documentary, made twenty years ago, John Pilger states that the UK has been guilty of “lies, brutality, and contempt”. Today, when we are talking about renewal of our Conservative Party and upholding our Conservative values, we have a duty to support the rights of the Chagossians. We should support their demands for justice, reparation, and their right to return to the islands from whence they were illegally removed.
