Britain has been asked to pay billions of pounds from taxpayers' money as part of the deal to return the Chagos Islands, it has been revealed.

In October, Sir Keir Starmer and Mauritian Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth announced that both countries had agreed to transfer the British Overseas Territory. Meanwhile, the UK and the US will continue to lease a key military base for 99 years. However, sources claim that Navinchandra Ramgoolam, the new prime minister who took Jugnauth's post, wants "crazy money" for the archipelago. Ramgoolam informed lawmakers that he had presented a "counter proposal" after phoning US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The proposal is reportedly worth tens of thousands of dollars. A source familiar with the sovereignty talks said, "They were talking £800million a year for as long as we wanted to keep the base there, plus billions of pounds in reparations."

A source familiar with the sovereignty talks said, "They were asking for £800 million a year for as long as we wanted to keep the base there, along with billions of pounds in reparations." The Conservative government, who initiated the talks, was hesitant about these amounts and never agreed to a deal. Labour has stayed quiet about how much the UK has agreed to pay or how much of the cost the US will cover. However, after protests from Mauritius, the fee is likely to increase, though the Foreign Office has stated that "an amount this high has not been considered at any point in negotiations between the UK and Mauritius," according to the Mail. The Times reports, citing seven unnamed "ministers, aides, diplomats, and lawyers involved in the case," that officials were "uncomfortable" with the international community's perspective on UK sovereignty over the islands.

In 2019, the International Court of Justice decided that Britain did not have sovereignty over the territory, leaving British Prime Ministers vulnerable to pressure from the international community. At one point in her brief tenure in No10, Liz Truss "got it in the neck from African countries and South American countries", one source said. The countries had told Truss, "You want us to help you remove Russia from its illegal invasion of Ukraine while you're illegally occupying a part of Africa in violation of an International Court of Justice decision," - prompting her to start talks with Mauritius. After over a year of negotiations, Rishi Sunak's Foreign Secretary, Lord Cameron, ultimately stopped the deal because he felt "deeply uncomfortable with what we were doing," as stated by a senior diplomat. However, Mauritius persisted in its demand for the islands, and one Whitehall official claimed that his government was "presented with this disastrous thing which had to be resolved straight away" after Starmer came to power in July.

With only three weeks left until Donald Trump's inauguration as President, a deal has still not been reached. Trump will veto the capitulation, according to Nigel Farage, but one official cautioned, "Trump has stated nothing about this... Modi wants this deal, and Trump has called [Indian Prime Minister Narendra] Modi his closest buddy in the world. "An amount this high has not been considered at any point in negotiations between the UK and Mauritius," a spokesperson for the Foreign Office stated.