26-06-2025
Starmer is acting like a 19th century colonialist
I can't stop looking at an image of a man in Westminster holding a flag. He is standing proud and defiant. He doesn't want his homeland to be taken over by a foreign country. And yet, oddly, this man is not a folk hero to the Left.
His name is Misley Mandarin, and he embodies a noble tradition of anti-colonial activism. He is not operating at the level of Gandhi. But the principle that underpins Mandarin's fight is the same powerful one that shaped independence movements in Asia and Africa in the 20th century: that people should have a say over the destiny of their homelands. It is as simple as that.
But this particular argument of Mandarin is completely deaf to a group of people who claim to stand up for progress and human rights: Keir Starmer's Labour Party and the wider Left. Why?
We have heard much talk, especially in the past five years, about the need for Britain to 'decolonise'. In principle this means that we confront our nation's colonial past and try to make amends for it.
In practice, it means an ostentatious display of self-loathing – in which our institutions, from museums and galleries to schools and universities, relentlessly promote a warped version of our history.
British history, according to this supposedly enlightened world view, is nothing more than a catalogue of racism and predatory colonialism; one damn oppression after another.
Colonialism is bad, they would concede. But if it's done by an African country, why should it be any of our business? We should focus on ourselves and the sins we have perpetrated (and continue to perpetrate) in the world rather than giving moral lecture to nations from 'the Global South'.
I remember the start of this decade, when this hysteria reached its apogee, and almost every bookshop I went to was full of lists about how British people (specifically white British people) could better educate themselves.
And yet, in a crystal-clear case of colonialism, all I see is ignorance and indifference. For Mandarin, who came to Britain 25 years ago, is mounting a legal challenge against the Labour Government over their transfer of his native land to Mauritius; in other words, he is agitating for these islands to not be the colonial property of this foreign nation.
'We are not Mauritian,' Mandarin told The Telegraph, 'we are Chagossian. The Government cannot lawfully decide our fate without us.'
He is not the only Chagossian passionately advocating against this transfer. Bernadette Dugasse and Bertrice Pompe, another two British citizens native to Chagos, launched a last-minute injunction at the High Court last month to stop the deal going through.
Pompe has said: 'The fight is not over. There is nothing in that treaty for Chagossians and we will fight.'
In fact, the Chagossians are invoking human rights law, the same kind of rhetoric that Starmer and his allies would be all too familiar with. Dugasse and Pompe will argue any agreement struck behind closed doors is not simply unjust, but also unlawful.
Starmer would say this issue is about protecting national security. And perhaps if Mauritius was not an ally of China this argument would have some credence. But weren't the Left meant to be the people who stood up for higher values over cynical realpolitik? Misley Mandarin is a hero. And I hope he succeeds in stopping the British Government and their reckless colonial actions.
