Member's statement: Chagos Islands: British Overseas Territories

Member's statement by Mr Peter Martin on 28 January 2025.

MLA: Mr Peter Martin
Party at the time: Democratic Unionist Party
Date: 28 January 2025
Type: Member's statement
Business: Members' Statements
Heading: Chagos Islands: British Overseas Territories
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 4763526

Text

Normally, in a Member's statement, I would speak about constituency issues. This morning, however, I will speak about islands some 6,000 miles away from the United Kingdom. Last year, I was invited by Queen's University Belfast to speak at a debate that was hosted by Friends of the British Overseas Territories (FOTBOT). Its role is to educate people about the British overseas territories' historical links with the UK and to foster relationships between UK politicians and politicians across the territories. FOTBOT gave me the privilege of meeting a delegation of Chagossians during their visit to Northern Ireland. I was particularly moved to hear how their families had been forcibly taken from the Chagos Islands and prevented from returning, which was an extremely painful experience.
The shameful denial of Chagossian sovereignty was compounded by the Labour Government's announcement, during a set of fast-tracked negotiations, that they intend to cede the islands to Mauritius. It is striking that, during the entire process of those negotiations, the Chagossian people were omitted from the talks and their views were not sought. Instead, the Labour Government have attempted to subvert the incoming US Administration by offering the Mauritian Government £90 million a year for 99 years to access Diego Garcia. That is almost £9 billion of taxpayers' money, yet it currently costs nothing. The Mauritian Government, in turn, are far from being an open and tolerant Administration. For example, you can receive a jail sentence of up to 10 years if you dare to say out loud that the Chagos Islands are anything other than Mauritian. Thanks to the valiant efforts of FOTBOT, awareness of the issue has been raised across the United Kingdom over the past number of weeks. It was extremely encouraging to see such a strong demonstration of support for the Chagossian right to self-determination on 12 November, when FOTBOT held its call-to-action event in London. The event united over 600 Chagossians from a variety of backgrounds behind a single message: their wish for self-determination. I urge all Members to support the voice of the Chagossian people during the next few pivotal weeks, as we await the crucial position and decision of the incoming US Administration with the profound hope that that appalling deal will be discarded.

375 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.

Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.14 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.71).
No identity-based framing was identified (0.78).
Subject area: Constitutional question, Brexit, the Windsor Framework and sovereignty.
The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.

This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.

Jev’s structured answers

Probability that each statement is true of this text (0 = no, 1 = yes). A criterion counts as met at 0.60 or above.
Question	Probability	Met?
Identity framing	0.34	No
Sectarian or communal antagonism	0.10	No
Cultural grievance politics	0.10	No
Dog-whistle messaging	0.08	No
Controversy escalation	0.18	No
Legitimate policy scrutiny	0.71	Yes
Overall judgement	0.14	At or below not-flagging threshold

Context and attribution (stance)
Option	Probability
No identity-based framing (chosen)	0.78
Reports or questions it	0.01
Criticises or condemns it	0.11
Adopts it	0.10

Subject area (top five)
Subject	Probability
Constitutional question, Brexit, the Windsor Framework and sovereignty	0.58
Immigration, asylum, race, ethnicity and Travellers	0.29
Another identity-related subject	0.12
No identity-related subject	0.01
Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials	0.00

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:52 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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