Collapsed Chagos deal shows naivety of Downing Street

The government’s decision to shelve its much-vaunted Chagos Islands deal is not merely farcical. It is a self-inflicted humiliation. Ministers have repeatedly argued that the contentious plan to hand the archipelago over to Mauritius in a lease-back arrangement was “absolutely vital” for national security and the future of the British and American military base on Diego Garcia. Now they have been forced to drop legislation to ratify the deal after they lost the support of the mercurial American president — another embarrassing about-turn Labour can ill afford. The handling of the saga will once again raise serious questions about the…