Starmer’s “Great Friend” Philippe Sands KC Shared £8 Million Pot for Work on Chagos Surrender Seal

A “great friend” of Sir Keir Starmer, Philippe Sands KC, has shared an £8 million pot for his work negotiating the Chagos Islands surrender deal to cede the territory to Mauritius. The Mail has the story.

Philippe Sands KC, who describes himself as a “great friend” of the Prime Minister, pocketed his share of the sum while acting as chief legal counsel to Mauritius between 2010 and 2024.

In that time he secured the controversial deal which will see Britain hand back sovereignty of the strategically important archipelago, also known as the British Indian Ocean Territory, and lease the Diego Garcia military base for 99 years – at an average cost of £101 million a year. 

Professor Sands, a leading international human rights lawyer who is also close with Attorney General Lord Hermer, led a series of legal teams who were almost exclusively tasked with fighting for the cession of the island to Mauritius.

Together they were allocated at least £8,300,000 from the Mauritian state budget, official documents show.

While the exact figure Professor Sands took home is unknown, his role as chief counsel will have seen him earn the largest cut, according to one international lawyer, who said a large bonus could also be paid on the deal’s completion.

Professor Sands, who was controversially pictured hoisting a Mauritius flag over the Chagos islands in 2022, joked about “humiliating Britain completely” during a talk at the University of Cambridge in 2023.

He has been branded a “mercenary” by one Labour MP, who accused him of “pretending to care about rights”.

Graham Stringer, who has urged fellow Labour MPs to block the deal, told the Daily Mail: “Philippe Sands is making a fortune representing the interests of a foreign country.

“Sands, the Prime Minister and the Attorney General all believe that international courts, dominated by judges from China are more important than our own democracy.

“The sooner we take control back for the people of this country, and not for foreign courts with lawyers making millions, the better.”

One of the International Court of Justice judges who ruled Britain should give the islands to Mauritius “as rapidly as possible” in 2019, effectively forcing the UK to begin negotiations over the archipelago, is a former Chinese Government official who backed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Stop Press: A group of Chagossians have stormed their islands and re-established a permanent settlement as part of a campaign to prevent the handover to Mauritius.