Removing citizenship rights from Chagossians is unnecessary and illogical

The government is legislating to remove some of the citizenship rights it granted to Chagossians in 2022. This is illogical and unnecessary, and with the future of the Bill now uncertain, this aspect should be scrapped.

This week, the government failed to put forward a committal motion in relation to the Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill. The Bill cleared its Second Reading in the House of Lords on Tuesday, but there were concerns that the government did not have the votes amongst peers to move to committee stage, which leaves the Bill in limbo.

The UK and Mauritius signed a Treaty in May 2025 to transfer sovereignty of the Chagos islands (referred to in UK law as the British Indian Ocean Territory) to Mauritius. The government is following a convention that it will not ratify the Treaty until it can at the same time be brought into force in domestic law. Consequently, the government has introduced to Parliament the Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill, which has already cleared the House of Commons. Meanwhile, a judicial review brought by Chagossians challenging the Bill (and through it the Treaty) has been heard by Mrs Justice Stacey in the High Court last week with judgment awaited imminently.

Route to British Nationality

Back in 2022, the government agreed to create a bespoke route to British nationality for descendants of those born on the Chagos Islands, who had been prevented from becoming British nationals due to their exclusion from the archipelago since 1971. Under this route, which opened on 23 November 2022, Chagossians could register for both British overseas territories citizenship (BOTC), and British citizenship. The route was open for a 5-year period for those who were adults on the date of commencement (or until the age of 23 for those who were under the age of 18 on that date). To support the rollout, the normal Home Office fee of £1,446 was waived, and the Foreign Office made publicly accessible records of births within the British Indian Ocean Territory.

The Bill now before Parliament provides that, from the date it is brought into force, Chagossians will no longer be able to acquire BOTC status. Chagossians who have already acquired BOTC status before the Bill is brought in will retain that status, but they will not be able to pass it on to their children.

BOTC is a British nationality status associated with remaining British territories. A child born in a British overseas territory (for example the Cayman Islands) to locally settled parents, will become a BOTC at birth. But holding BOTC status does not in general permit the holder to reside in a particular territory. The right to live in the Cayman Islands, for example, is determined by Cayman immigration rules, and does not automatically follow from holding BOTC status.

In the case of the Chagossians, they continue to be prevented from residing in the Chagos by immigration rules made by the BIOT administration (operating from within the UK Foreign Office). So their BOTC status has little to no practical value. But by demarcating them from other British citizens through their ancestral connection to the archipelago, it is emblematic of their claim to return.

The original rationale of the 2022 law, was to put the Chagossians in the same position, in terms of their British nationality, that they would have been in, had they not been unlawfully excluded from the Chagos Islands. What is the rationale for now preventing Chagossians from newly acquiring BOTC status after the date of handback?

The justification for the citizenship measures appears to be made in the Explanatory Memorandum to the Bill, that BOTC is a form of British nationality “held through a close and continuing connection with a British overseas territory.” Implicitly, the Chagossians will no longer hold a continuing connection with a remaining British territory.

Precedent in other territory handovers

But in previous cases, where sovereignty over a British territory was handed over to a local government, British nationality held through belonging to that territory was lost when the individual became a local citizen upon independence. For example, upon Kenyan independence in 1963, a person who became a Kenyan citizen would lose their UK citizenship, unless they had a remaining connection to the UK or a remaining British colony, typically that they, their father or their father’s father was born or naturalised there. Barack Obama, for example, would have been a UK citizen when he was born in Hawaii in 1961, but would have lost this status when Kenya became independent, because both his father and paternal grandfather were born in Kenya.

In the case of Hong Kong, anyone who held local British nationality (British dependent territories citizenship) by virtue of their connection to Hong Kong, lost it upon handover. But they were at the same time given the right to register as a British National (Overseas), a distinct status from British citizenship.

The Chagossians and their descendants are not being given any other citizenship status by reason of their connection to the Chagos. They may happen to be citizens of Mauritius, if they were born or naturalised there, but that is a coincidence. In the case of Chagossians born in Seychelles, there will be no remaining status associated with their ancestral connection to the Chagos.

This removal of citizenship rights for Chagossians is not mandated by the Treaty itself; it is a separate feature of the Bill alone.

Take up of the law to date

Looking back on three years of operation of the 2022 law, Home Office migration statistics for adult registration suggest that over twelve thousand people of Chagossian descent originally born in Mauritius have registered as British nationals in reliance on this route, compared to less than a hundred born in Seychelles. This does not reflect the relative size of the communities, however, and it is clear that the Seychelles group has not asserted their rights in the same way as the Mauritian group.

Many of the changes being proposed to the Bill are, as Calvin Bailey MP said, “wrecking amendments” driven by opposition to the Treaty. But the removal of citizenship rights is unnecessary. In recognising the wrongs of the past, symbolism matters. And if the right of return were ever to be exercised, this would be a more than symbolic matter.

This article first appeared on 7 November 2025.