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Notes -
By vague request of interest in the topic, I am copying over a post I made elsewhere to this thread.
The Chagos Islands Deal, or, The Next Westminster Scandal Is Already Here, You Just Haven't Noticed It Yet
The British-owned Chagos Islands, in the Indian Ocean, host a major US military base, Diego Garcia. Our government is now planning to sell the islands to Mauritius, and to pay them for the privilege.
Brief on the background. The Chagos Islands were originally uninhabited until France brought slaves from Africa to work on plantations in the late 18th and early 19th century. The descendants of these workers became known as Chagossians. The islands, along with Mauritius, came under British control in 1814 through the Treaty of Paris, and were administered as a dependency of colonial Mauritius for administrative convenience rather than any historic connection. In 1965, three years before Mauritius gained independence from British colonial rule, the UK separated the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius to create the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). Then, the UK removed around 2,000 Chagossians from the islands to make way for the Diego Garcia base. Mauritius maintains that the separation of the islands was illegal under international law, and has waged a legal battle to get them. In 2019, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion that the UK's ownership of the Chagos Islands was unlawful. The UN General Assembly subsequently passed non-binding resolutions demanding the UK withdraw.
Alright, onto the actual scandal. Over the last few months, the British Government has been rushing to put together a deal that would hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. This rush was likely prompted by fears that the next US administration would oppose the handover, and seemingly because of this rush, the British government has kept giving in to new concessions that Mauritus is demanding to seal the handover. So now the UK will also pay $9bn over 99 years to lease the base. Oh, and it'll be inflation-linked. Oh, and front-loaded. Oh, and maybe it'll actually be $18bn instead. A substantial amount of money for a government that is raising taxes, cutting spending, and claiming there's a £22bn 'black hole' in the finances. In addition to the loss of a strategic military base, There are further concerns that the islands would likely end up hosting the Chinese military at the end of all this, too.
And in return for all this, in return for the territory and all that money, the UK gets... Nothing.
So to justify the seemingly impossible, the government has offered an increasingly bizarre list of reasons to hand over the territory, none of which hold up to scrutiny.
No, it is not. The Chagossians hate Mauritius and reject this deal because it doesn't give them self-determination and ownership of the Chagos Islands. In 2021, Mauritius criminalized "Misrepresenting the sovereignty of Mauritius over any part of its territory" i.e criminalized Chagossians stating they should own the islands themselves.
Nothing that would be binding. And besides, international law and what army? This is a US military base. If we care to hold it, it will be held, and there's no force that can take it from us.
No. It will cause other countries with dubious territorial claims on the UK, like Spain and Argentina, to smell blood in the water. Not to mention generally making the government look like gullible idiots.
Unfortunately, it is untrue that Keir Starmer monomaniacally follows international law. For example, his support for arresting Britons over speech crimes violates international law. "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." - UN General Assembly, Resolution 217A (III), Universal Declaration of Human Rights, A/RES/217(III) (December 10, 1948)
In 2022, they agreed to enter negotiations. And then in 2023 they realised how stupid handing the base over would be and pulled out of negotiations. This is also, of course, not an argument in favour of the deal.
I wish I was joking, but this is actually the argument they're currently using.
Okay, I did make that one up.
So what's actually going on here? There's not much that can be said with absolute certainty, but there is certainly some plausible alternative reasons that the government aren't so willing to state. For example, Keir Starmer was well aware of this case before becoming Prime Minister. In fact, Mauritius's chief legal advisor, Philippe Sands KC, is one of Keir Starmer's friends. Sands has seemingly (and maybe illegally) entered the islands in the past. Oh, and that last thing about changing the laws of physics to switch off the electromagnetic spectrum. That's also Philippe Sands. In other words, what's been presented as a national security claim from our own government is, in fact, smuggling a claim made by an adversary instead. There's another figure involved, too. Lord Hermer, who is seemingly involved in negotiations on the UK's side in some capacity, while also harbouring life-long anti-British sympathies. But his involvement seems less obvious here.
Anyway, now we have multiple opposition figures accusing Keir of, effectively, treasonous corruption.
Conservative MP Robert Jenrick:
Reform MP Nigel Farage:
Dominic Cummings:
I am gleefully awaiting the next reason the government presents for why we need to hand the islands over in full expectation that it is even more hilarious than the last.
Perhaps there’s a simple reason for this anti-British deal. Two of the key players you mentioned, Philippe Sands and Lord Hermer, are both Jews. You even mentioned that Lord Hermer harbors anti-British sentiment. Subversive Jews are trying to undermine the UK’s geopolitical power when the nation is weak and vulnerable. Starmer, though not a Jew, fits the role of the useful idiot here.
Since you’re looking for possible explanations for this seemingly irrational behavior, I thought I would supply an explanation.
You're breaking so many damn rules in one comment I'm mildly impressed. You have not proactively (or on demand) produced any evidence to suggest a conspiracy of the Jews. Or that they have anything to gain from weakening the British state. Inflammatory, boo-outgroup, throw it all in, toppings are free with this sandwich.
You've been warned in the past, and I'm giving you a short ban so you know they have teeth. Even our most fervent anti-semites hustle to meet posting standards, and I'd advise you do so too.
'Perhaps there's a simple reason for this anti-America deal. Two of the key players you mentioned, Alice and Bob are both radical leftists. You even mentioned that Bob harbors anti-America sentiment. Subversive radical leftists are trying to undermine America's power when the nation is weak and vulnerable. Biden, though not a radical leftist (I know, I know), fits the role of senile idiot here.
Since you're looking for possible explanations for this seemingly irrational behavior, I thought I would supply an explanation.'
Surely the above would just be Tuesday at the Motte rather than a banworthy post, no? I'm fairly confident I can find a number of comments like the above with minimal effort. Posts without any evidence to suggest a conspiracy, things that are inflammatory and boo-outgroup, etc.
The Jew-haters' brigade is right, tbh. Their comments mostly aren't treated the same. I just happen to think that's a good thing and think you should just ban anything that crosses the line to clear anti-semitism, while they don't.
Tongue-in-cheek suggestion: Replace janitorial duty with an AI that flips the political valency of a given comment before someone is asked to judge it. Bonus points if you can train the AI to learn a given user's ideology. If we manage to abstract reality enough, it's the first step towards black mirror!
The mods are very clear that single or few-issue posters are treated much more harshly for completely reasonable reasons, namely that they end up using the community as their soapbox for their ONE thing. It happens that floating around right-leaning forums with lenient speech policies are a not insubstantial number of people for whom their One Issue is the Jews. The main reason treatment of secure signals actually improved recently is that he decided, in a welcome shift, to start discussing other things in addition to his single issue.
Unless this is someone's alt, doesn't look like they're a regular Jewposter.
Anyways, object level aside since obviously I don't like the people obsessed with Jews either, this is just a much less lofty expression of free speech ideals for a community to follow. What @self_made_human articulated was more or less reddit with a right-shifted Overton window, but not far right enough (yet) to tolerate regular Jewposting. What's the difference between 'we treat anti-semites more harshly because our userbase finds their opinions inflammatory' and 'we moderate conservative opinions much more harshly because they're just sealioning single-issue posters?' There's plenty of garbage posts here with nary a fact in them and packed chock-full of opinions I find plenty inflammatory (and even articulated in a much cruder and more inflammatory way than the Jewposter!), and the only difference between them is the opinions of the majority.
Sure, if the mods make enough unpopular decisions the community dies. Sure, nobody can reach some platonic ideal of objectivity or impartiality. But abandoning the pretense so easily is a bit of a letdown.
I will push back against this claim. The Motte isn't just reddit with a right-shifted Overton window.
Our Overton window is wider. Enormously so, though not as unique these days as Twitter competes in terms of permissivity if not quality.
There are very few topics that are outright verboten on this site. Most of them would be spam, harassment and the like. You can just about advocate for any viewpoint as long as you do it politely and with enough explanatory force behind the views you endorse.
Report them! Few of us mods have the time to read each and every comment posted on the site. I once did, when I was rather underemployed, but if something doesn't show up in the report queue, it is much less likely to be moderated, at least promptly.
It's inevitable that unpopular topics will get reported more often, and will thus be moderated more often, even while holding the quality of the comment equal.
For this particular one, the volunteer janny system flagged it as a bad comment, it had multiple reports to boot. We take that into account when making moderation decisions, but it certainly isn't the only thing that matters, our discretion overrides it if we deem a comment to be within the rules despite people (rarely) reporting on vibes rather than the merits of a comment. There are users so consistently downvoted that they'd never leave the filter queue if we didn't override it. This place isn't a majoritarian free-for-all, we do our best to accommodate unpopular viewpoints.
Cirrus had multiple warnings, and was hit with a ban for a single day. That's a slap on the wrist as punishments go, and he is welcome to reframe the same point as long as he meets our other guidelines.
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