Matthew Norman: An act of dispossession that shames Britain

With Gordon Brown so inexplicably loath to celebrate his triumphant first year in No 10, what a relief to find the Foreign Secretary eschewing such dismal reticence in yesterday's paper. He is a bright and engaging chap, David Miliband, as he underlined in a first anniversary interview with Steve Richards. If a failing did emerge, perhaps it is an alarming lack of personal ambition (a fault that afflicts so many Cabinet ministers these days; what is wrong with them?). On the other hand, David aims his sights far higher in more altruistic areas, and never more so, naturally enough, than foreign policy.

"Britain is plugged into all the networks that matter," he told Steve of the delicate diplomatic Euro-American balancing act that paid such priceless dividends at the UN as invasion of Iraq approached. "This is accompanied by a range of assets, from the soft power of the BBC to the hard power of our armed forces. The combination means that Britain can follow progressive causes with confidence..." And so on, all the way to his domestic hopes of creating " a genuinely exciting fusion of the social democratic and liberal traditions... It speaks directly to what people want, more control over their lives and more stability on which to build."

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With all this in mind, let us look forward to a Law Lords hearing on Monday, when the Government will make its final attempt to frustrate the will of the exiles of the Chagos Islands to return to what lower courts have repeatedly decided should be their home once again. Do not be embarrassed if the name rings the faintest of bells. David may have glanced at memos on the matter over the past 12 months, but these tropical isles in the middle of the Indian Ocean may mean nothing to anyone who missed an item on that forthcoming court case on Radio 4 earlier this week

Here was a genuinely exciting fusion of the soft power of the BBC and the hard power of our armed forces ... a Today programme report about how, some 40 years ago, British soldiers evicted all 4,000 inhabitants of this British Indian Ocean Territory on pain of being shot dead, so that we could give their largest island, Diego Garcia, to the Americans for use as a naval base in return for a tiny discount on some nuclear missiles.

These people had lived there for some 200 unbroken years since their leprous ancestors were deported from Mauritius, which sold us the islands in 1965 for a princely £3m. The government memoranda of the time make delicious reading. One, from the head of the Colonial Office, dwells on the need to "avoid using the phrase 'permanent inhabitants' ... because (that would) imply that there is a population whose democratic rights will have to be safeguarded ..."

God forbid. Another, from the same charmer, candidly captures the fragrance of post-imperial Whitehall sensitivities. "The object of the exercise is to get some rocks which will remain ours; there will be no indigenous population except seagulls, who have not yet got a committee. Unfortunately, along with the seagulls go some few Tarzans and Man Fridays that are hopefully being wished on Mauritius."

Even more unfortunately, the displaced turned out to be the most beastly ingrates. For such trivial reasons as lack of work, extreme poverty and the inability to speak the language, and quite possibly the dearth of Janes and Robinson Crusoes to complete them, they didn't care for life on Mauritius. Eventually, after a long struggle, they were grudgingly granted British citizenship, about 2,000 living in the tropical West Sussex paradise of Crawley, that being the first town they came to after landing at Gatwick eight years ago.

It is at this point that their ingratitude really starts to grate, because even then the bleeders weren't happy. Pining for the days when, as one interviewee recalled, they "never had to spend money", living off vegetation and coconuts and fish they caught in the sea, they began their campaign to return. At every step, a Labour government that had recently come to power flaunting its ethical foreign policy resisted them.

After the High Court ruled in 2000 that they did have the right to return, the Government used a device called an order-in-council (a declaration made in the the Queen's name regarding Commonwealth realms) to override the ruling. In 2006 the High Court overturned it. The Government challenged this, and last year the Court of Appeal upheld the High Court judgment. Once again, the Government refused to accept the decision, which brings us to the Law Lords on Monday.

Assuming they agree with the lower courts, as seems likely, and confirm that the Chagossians are legally entitled to return, their prospects will remain gloomy. They cannot go back to Diego Garcia for obvious reasons (Man Fridays and Tarzans don't mix well with missile silos and aircraft carriers), and the Government will be under no binding legal obligation to find the estimated £50m required to make two of the smaller islands habitable again – a minuscule amount of money for the self-alleged world's fourth-largest economy, but one the Government will presumably discover, on checking its back pocket, it doesn't have on it at the minute, what with Northern Rock, Trident and the like.

Even so, what a chance for David Miliband to put some flesh on those words he spoke to Steve Richards. Ordinarily, as with the Gurkhas, only sustained media pressure persuades senior ministers that tempering past outrages with a little humanity isn't the poorest of form. In this case the newspapers couldn't care less. You might have thought that a couple of thousand dark-skinned people being voluntarily repatriated would be just the sort of example a paper like The Sun could throw its weight behind, but in this instance apparently not.

There is no electoral gain in correcting, or rather assuaging, such a despicable exhibition of colonial brutality. Very few people would even notice, and it certainly won't swing any marginals. It wouldn't plug Britain into yet another network that matters, or advance any leadership ambitions the Foreign Secretary might one day awake in amazement to find he has developed overnight, much like an adolescent stricken by acne.

It would simply be the right thing to do. It would speak directly to what these people want. It would give them back control over their lives and some stability on which to build. All Mr Miliband has to do is be a big boy for once and act like the holder of a great office of state, instead of an office clerk with a fancy title. All he needs do today, without reference to No 10, is pick up the phone, instruct his legal department to drop the appeal and chisel that measly £50m from his budget. Is that really so much to ask in the sovereign cause of a progressive foreign policy?

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