Moves to pave the way for the handover of the Chagos Islands have been paused, a minister has told MPs, amid continuing discussions with the US over the controversial deal.
The comments by Hamish Falconer, a Foreign Office minister and former diplomat, were swiftly played down by government sources who said he had misspoken. But opposition parties said they appeared to describe the reality of the UK’s position as the deal comes under increasing pressure from Donald Trump.
Last week Trump said Keir Starmer was “making a big mistake” by handing sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius in exchange for the UK and US being allowed to continue using their airbase on one of the islands, Diego Garcia.
In response to an urgent question in the Commons from Nigel Farage on Wednesday, Falconer said: “We have a process going through parliament in relation to the treaty.” He added: “We will bring that back to parliament at the appropriate time. We are pausing for discussions with our American counterparts.”
The government scrambled to contain the confusion caused by Falconer’s comments, and sources in the Foreign Office said he had misspoken. A spokesperson said: “There is no pause. We have never set a deadline. Timings will be announced in the usual way.”
However, members of the House of Lords said they had been guided unofficially to understand that the bill was due to come before them this week after clearing its latest stage in the Commons last month. Those plans appear to have changed after Trump’s intervention on 18 February.
The Conservative peer Ross Kempsell said: “We were all expecting to go into ping pong on the Chagos surrender bill this week. The government are now in total disarray and ministers are right to put this thing on ice.”
Labour sources said the bill had never been formally tabled for discussion in the Lords this week and other dates were being looked at.
The exchanges in the Commons on Wednesday added to the confusion surrounding the deal. Although the issue has yet to cut through with voters – 45% of those polled last month by YouGov did not have a view on whether they supported or opposed it – it is diplomatically fraught.
Peers in effect have been waiting for more than a month for what might be the final vote on the bill.
The shadow foreign secretary, Priti Patel, who is in the US meeting political figures about the deal, pounced on the comments by Falconer and described the deal as “an appalling act of betrayal”.
“I am in Washington lobbying senior administration figures on this issue and I am pleased the UK government has been forced to pause the legislation,” she said. “But ministers must go further: now it is time for Keir Starmer to face reality and kill this shameful surrender once and for all before it does any more damage.”
Earlier, Falconer made it clear that the UK government was taking notice of Trump’s intervention, which went against the grain of not only what Trump had previously said but also US government policy.
While the president had previously criticised the plan, which is backed by the state department, earlier this month he described it as the best deal Starmer could make in the circumstances.
Falconer told MPs: “The view of the United States president may well have changed but the treaty has not.”
Farage used his urgent question on Wednesday to force the issue on to the agenda after he had been accused of “performing Maga stunts” by claiming the British government had stopped him from travelling to the Chagos Islands on a humanitarian mission.
The Reform UK leader said he had flown to the Maldives to join a delegation bringing aid to four Chagossians who are trying to establish a settlement on one of the archipelago’s islands to protest against the transfer to Mauritius.
In a video posted on X on Saturday, Farage claimed the UK government had blocked his trip to the territory, which cannot be entered without a valid permit. Farage said: “The British government are applying pressure on the president and the government of the Maldives to do everything within their power to stop me getting on that boat and going to the Chagos Islands.”
