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Why is the UK’s Labour government letting people from the Chagos Islands come here to align with United Nations demands, while tightening welfare rules that the UN has condemned as human rights violations?
It doesn’t make sense, does it?
Or does it?
Let’s examine what is really going on – and consider what the government may be trying to achieve.
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How we – and they – got here
In 2022, the Conservatives opened a new British nationality route for all descendants of Chagossians — people expelled from their homeland by a UK government in the 1960s to make way for a military base.
They knew it could lead to thousands moving to the UK, but provided no support for those who would struggle to settle – nor did they offer more funds to councils that would be expected to help them do so.
Then this year (2025), Labour finalised a sovereignty deal with Mauritius, agreeing to hand over the islands to that country while paying £101 million per year to keep using the base on the largest Chagos Island, Diego Garcia.
The move made many Chagossians feel unsafe in Mauritius, prompting hundreds to travel to the UK to claim their rights as British citizens.
The BBC is reporting that councils such as Tory-run Hillingdon, where more than 600 Chagossians have arrived since July 2024, say the costs of emergency housing are “breaking” their budgets.
Hillingdon expects to spend around £2 million this year; a “hidden cost”, some claim, of Labour’s foreign policy decision – that has actually been caused by the Conservative policy change in 2022.
The government insists the arrivals are “unrelated” to the handover – but that is absurd: the cause and effect are obvious.
Racism by neglect
By refusing to fund councils or manage the transition properly, the government is creating resentment that will inevitably fall on the new arrivals themselves.
It’s a familiar pattern: push vulnerable people into desperate situations, then stand back while communities are divided by anger and fear.
The UK is a hotbed of anti-immigrant sentiment at the moment; it is the issue that has fuelled the rise of Reform UK, currently the greatest political threat to the Labour government.
So why, in the name of sanity, is Labour deliberately making this situation worse?
A cynical double-game
On the surface, Labour’s decision to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius looks like a moral victory — a way to show that the UK is “back in step with international law” after years of Tory isolationism. It’s a cheap way to buy global credibility.
But at home, the party knows perfectly well that its action will intensify anti-immigrant feeling — because the Tories set it up that way.
When the Conservative government opened the nationality route for Chagossians in 2022, it did so without offering the resources councils would need to support the families who would come to the UK. That omission wasn’t an accident; it was a trap.
The Tories created a situation in which any government honouring its obligations to the Chagossians would face a surge in arrivals — and a predictable wave of public anger. Labour walked right into it.
Or perhaps not entirely by accident.
Selective morality
Labour justifies the Chagos deal as “respecting international law”, in line with a UN ruling that the islands should be returned to Mauritius.
But the same government is openly defying UN rulings on the treatment of sick and disabled people in the UK – as have Tory governments before it.
In 2016 and 2017, the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities found the UK guilty of “grave and systematic violations” of disabled people’s rights.
In 2023, the committee said those conditions had worsened — and Labour’s 2025 welfare changes are set to make them worse still.
This year, Labour tightened the rules on some sickness and disability benefits, narrowing the criteria for support and increasing conditionality — forcing people with severe illness back into work-related regimes the UN has already condemned.
Some of the harsher measures were delayed after protests, pending a review by Sir Stephen Timms that is due to report back in autumn 2026.
But the government has not promised to change course once the review ends, depending on its recommendation; the plan to cut benefits further still stands.
So while Labour boasts about “complying with the UN” on the Chagos Islands, it is simultaneously breaking UN law at home — and deliberately worsening discrimination against the sick and disabled.
A convenient distraction
For Labour, the anger against Chagossians is useful.
As the party cuts sickness and disability benefits, dismantles safeguards, and ignores UN rulings on human rights, it needs somewhere else for public resentment to go.
What better way to divert attention from attacks on the poor and the sick than by fuelling a fresh “immigration problem”?
Every headline about “council collapse” or “Chagossian housing crisis” keeps attention off the fact that millions of people in the UK are being pushed deeper into poverty by government policy.
And as hostility toward migrants grows, so does the appetite for punitive welfare reforms. Both feed the same narrative: that the real problem isn’t government cruelty — it’s “undeserving” others taking too much.
One law for show, another for real life
This is the pattern that unites both Labour and the Conservatives.
When international law helps Britain’s image, it is embraced.
When it exposes cruelty at home, it is ignored.
The Chagossians, the sick and the disabled are all victims of the same hypocrisy: they are useful symbols when it suits the government, but disposable when it costs money.
Labour’s “moral” foreign policy and its “fiscally responsible” domestic policy are two sides of the same coin — image over integrity, legality for headlines, cruelty in practice.
It entrenches racism and ableism as tools of statecraft: divide, distract, and dominate.
That is why the government is “helping immigrants while harming the sick” — because both policies serve the same end.
They keep ordinary people fighting each other instead of holding power to account.
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Government hypocrisy: helping immigrants while harming the sick
Share this post:
Why is the UK’s Labour government letting people from the Chagos Islands come here to align with United Nations demands, while tightening welfare rules that the UN has condemned as human rights violations?
It doesn’t make sense, does it?
Or does it?
Let’s examine what is really going on – and consider what the government may be trying to achieve.
Support Vox Political!
With social media algorithms acting as gatekeepers – allowing users to read only what their owners want them to, sites like Vox Political need the support of our readers like never before.
You can help by making a donation:
https://Ko-fi.com/voxpolitical
How we – and they – got here
In 2022, the Conservatives opened a new British nationality route for all descendants of Chagossians — people expelled from their homeland by a UK government in the 1960s to make way for a military base.
They knew it could lead to thousands moving to the UK, but provided no support for those who would struggle to settle – nor did they offer more funds to councils that would be expected to help them do so.
Then this year (2025), Labour finalised a sovereignty deal with Mauritius, agreeing to hand over the islands to that country while paying £101 million per year to keep using the base on the largest Chagos Island, Diego Garcia.
The move made many Chagossians feel unsafe in Mauritius, prompting hundreds to travel to the UK to claim their rights as British citizens.
The BBC is reporting that councils such as Tory-run Hillingdon, where more than 600 Chagossians have arrived since July 2024, say the costs of emergency housing are “breaking” their budgets.
Hillingdon expects to spend around £2 million this year; a “hidden cost”, some claim, of Labour’s foreign policy decision – that has actually been caused by the Conservative policy change in 2022.
The government insists the arrivals are “unrelated” to the handover – but that is absurd: the cause and effect are obvious.
Racism by neglect
By refusing to fund councils or manage the transition properly, the government is creating resentment that will inevitably fall on the new arrivals themselves.
It’s a familiar pattern: push vulnerable people into desperate situations, then stand back while communities are divided by anger and fear.
The UK is a hotbed of anti-immigrant sentiment at the moment; it is the issue that has fuelled the rise of Reform UK, currently the greatest political threat to the Labour government.
So why, in the name of sanity, is Labour deliberately making this situation worse?
A cynical double-game
On the surface, Labour’s decision to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius looks like a moral victory — a way to show that the UK is “back in step with international law” after years of Tory isolationism. It’s a cheap way to buy global credibility.
But at home, the party knows perfectly well that its action will intensify anti-immigrant feeling — because the Tories set it up that way.
When the Conservative government opened the nationality route for Chagossians in 2022, it did so without offering the resources councils would need to support the families who would come to the UK. That omission wasn’t an accident; it was a trap.
The Tories created a situation in which any government honouring its obligations to the Chagossians would face a surge in arrivals — and a predictable wave of public anger. Labour walked right into it.
Or perhaps not entirely by accident.
Selective morality
Labour justifies the Chagos deal as “respecting international law”, in line with a UN ruling that the islands should be returned to Mauritius.
But the same government is openly defying UN rulings on the treatment of sick and disabled people in the UK – as have Tory governments before it.
In 2016 and 2017, the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities found the UK guilty of “grave and systematic violations” of disabled people’s rights.
In 2023, the committee said those conditions had worsened — and Labour’s 2025 welfare changes are set to make them worse still.
This year, Labour tightened the rules on some sickness and disability benefits, narrowing the criteria for support and increasing conditionality — forcing people with severe illness back into work-related regimes the UN has already condemned.
Some of the harsher measures were delayed after protests, pending a review by Sir Stephen Timms that is due to report back in autumn 2026.
But the government has not promised to change course once the review ends, depending on its recommendation; the plan to cut benefits further still stands.
So while Labour boasts about “complying with the UN” on the Chagos Islands, it is simultaneously breaking UN law at home — and deliberately worsening discrimination against the sick and disabled.
A convenient distraction
For Labour, the anger against Chagossians is useful.
As the party cuts sickness and disability benefits, dismantles safeguards, and ignores UN rulings on human rights, it needs somewhere else for public resentment to go.
What better way to divert attention from attacks on the poor and the sick than by fuelling a fresh “immigration problem”?
Every headline about “council collapse” or “Chagossian housing crisis” keeps attention off the fact that millions of people in the UK are being pushed deeper into poverty by government policy.
And as hostility toward migrants grows, so does the appetite for punitive welfare reforms. Both feed the same narrative: that the real problem isn’t government cruelty — it’s “undeserving” others taking too much.
One law for show, another for real life
This is the pattern that unites both Labour and the Conservatives.
When international law helps Britain’s image, it is embraced.
When it exposes cruelty at home, it is ignored.
The Chagossians, the sick and the disabled are all victims of the same hypocrisy: they are useful symbols when it suits the government, but disposable when it costs money.
Labour’s “moral” foreign policy and its “fiscally responsible” domestic policy are two sides of the same coin — image over integrity, legality for headlines, cruelty in practice.
It entrenches racism and ableism as tools of statecraft: divide, distract, and dominate.
That is why the government is “helping immigrants while harming the sick” — because both policies serve the same end.
They keep ordinary people fighting each other instead of holding power to account.
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