A High Court judge has lifted a temporary injunction that prevented the UK from signing a deal to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.
Under the deal, Britain would hand over sovereignty of the island territory to Mauritius and lease back a crucial military base on the archipelago for 99 years.
An online ceremony featuring UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and representatives of the Mauritian government had been planned to announce the conclusion of the deal on Thursday.
But it was scuppered when the injunction was granted at 2.25am by Mr Justice Goose to provide "interim relief" for Bertrice Pompe, one of two British women born in the islands who is set to bring legal action against the UK government over the deal.
An emergency hearing was then arranged hours later, after which another judge, Mr Justice Chamberlain, lifted the block.
Lawyers for the Foreign Office claimed the deadlines of UK parliamentary recess and the Mauritian budget made a Thursday signing "imperative".
They added: “Any grant of injunctive relief would make it impossible for the treaty to be signed without significant further diplomatic negotiations, due to the need to synchronise signature of a treaty with each government’s parliamentary schedules.”
The UK government welcomed the ruling, saying the agreement is “vital to protect the British people and our national security”.
Mauritius claims it was forced to give the Chagos Islands away in 1965 to gain independence from Britain. In 2019, the World Court said the UK should give up control of the islands and said it had wrongfully forced the population to leave in the 1970s to make way for a US airbase.
The UN's highest court, the International Court of Justice in The Hague, has ruled that Britain's administration of the territory is unlawful and must end.
Critics of the handover say it would undermine western security given Mauritius's close ties to China, with concern raised about the UK-US airbase on the island of Diego Garcia.
It requires the government to “maintain the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom over the British Indian Ocean Territory until further order”.
Speaking outside of the Royal Courts of Justice in London after the decision, Ms Pompe said it was “a very, very sad day, but we take courage with the people we have behind us”.
She added: “We have rights. We are British citizens, yet our right doesn’t count. We don’t want to give our rights to Mauritius, we are not Mauritians.
“I think the British justice, they take care of who they want, when they want. They have not been able to rectify the wrongs they have done to us for 60 years. They still want to give deaf ears to our cries and we are not giving up.”
