JEREMY CORBYN told the Commons today that the government must give the Chagos Islanders the right to return to their homes as a row erupted over the cost of the deal restoring sovereignty over their homeland to Mauritius.

The independent MP, who has campaigned for justice for the islanders for decades, argued that “this is an issue of decolonisation.”

He said: “In international law, the Chagos Islands have become part of Mauritius. 

“There is a right of return of all Chagossians to the islands,” he stressed, adding that the “islanders have suffered for so long and been treated so brutally they deserve justice.”

However, for Labour and the Tories, the issue was less about justice than cost and vague assertions concerning threats to “national security.”

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch leapt on claims by Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam that the deal to transfer the islands would be accompanied by £18 billion in payments from Britain.

She said that “when Labour negotiates, our country loses,” calling the agreement “an immoral surrender so north London lawyers can boast at their dinner parties.”

Sir Keir Starmer claimed that most of the talks leading to the deal had been held under the previous Tory government and that Ms Badenoch had not taken up the offer of security briefings to explain it to her.

The Prime Minister’s spokesman disputed Mr Ramgoolam’s figures, saying: “He has got those figures, or at least the way he was characterising it, wrong.

“His summary of the deal was clearly aimed at a domestic political audience, but it was factually inaccurate” — an unusually blunt rebuttal.

The spokesman added that there had “been no change to the cost of the deal or the terms of the lease.”

Its details have not been revealed, but the price tag was previously estimated at around £9 billion over a period of years.

Sir Keir also spelt out the real rationale for the agreement, which aims to secure US and British access to the Diego Garcia military base on the islands for a further century at least.

“Without legal certainty, the base cannot operate in practical terms as it should,” he said. “That is bad for national security and is a gift to our adversaries.”

The Tories and Reform UK are inciting US President Donald Trump to block the deal. 

Reform leader Nigel Farage told MPs that pursuing the agreement could lead to US economic sanctions against Britain.

He was in turn warned by Mr Corbyn against dragging the country “down the road of rebuilding the British empire.”