Last October, the UK announced it would hand over sovereignty of the islands, known officially as the British Indian Ocean Territory, to Mauritius but would maintain a 99-year lease over the UK-US military airbase on the largest island, Diego Garcia.

The deal was reached with former Mauritian leader Pravind Jugnauth, but Navin Ramgoolam, his replacement, has been very critical.

Progress has also been delayed to allow officials from incoming President Donald Trump’s team to look at the details of the deal.

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The agreement struck in October – which had been greenlit by the Biden administration – includes the UK paying lease payments to Mauritius for the UK-US military airbase.

However, shortly after the deal was struck, Mauritius elected a new prime minister, Navin Ramgoolam, who wanted to reopen negotiations.

In a statement on Instagram on Thursday, Prime Minister Ramgoolam’s office said he had accepted “the presence of a representative from the new administration in the United States of America in the negotiations so as to further strengthen the process”.

Ramgoolam also said this showed that he was open and willing “to find common ground”, adding that he was confident there would be a “positive resolution”.

He was quoted in the UK’s Telegraph newspaper as saying that the White House had requested that it had someone at the talks.

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Earlier this month, Ramgoolam told Mauritian MPs that the previous deal had been poorly negotiated by the man he replaced, describing it as a “sell-out”.

He said that the payments the UK had agreed to make to Mauritius were not inflation proof and should involve a bigger up-front amount.

He also objected to a clause where the UK could unilaterally extend the lease on Diego Garcia for another 40 years.

It is unclear what the US stance on the deal is exactly, but last year, before he was in office, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said it posed a “serious threat”, arguing it gives the islands to a country aligned with China. Mauritius has a trade agreement with China.

The UK took control of the Chagos Islands, from its then colony, Mauritius, in 1965 and went on to evict its population of more than 1,000 people to make way for the Diego Garcia base.

Mauritius, which won independence from the UK in 1968, has maintained the islands are its own, and the UN’s highest court has ruled, in an advisory opinion, that the UK’s administration of the territory is “unlawful”.

The Chagos islanders – some in Mauritius and the Seychelles, but others living in the UK – do not speak with one voice on the fate of their homeland.

Some have criticised the deal, saying they were not consulted in the negotiations.

Last October, the UK announced it would hand over sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius but would maintain a 99-year lease over the UK-US military airbase on the largest island, Diego Garcia.

However, shortly after the deal was struck, Mauritius elected a new prime minister, Navin Ramgoolam, who wanted to reopen negotiations. He told his MPs on Tuesday new conditions had been negotiated meaning the UK’s lease payments would be linked to inflation and frontloaded.

But the UK Foreign Office said the figures being quoted were “inaccurate and misleading”.

“The UK will only sign a deal that is in our national interest,” a spokesperson said.

The Times suggested that the payments by the UK government to Mauritius could effectively double from £9bn to £18bn, but this been denied by the UK Foreign Office.

However some senior figures in government are opposed to the deal, describing it as “terrible”, “mad” and “impossible to understand”.

“At a time when there is no money, how can we spend billions of pounds to give something away?”, one senior government source said.

Progress on the deal had been paused while the UK consulted new US President Donald Trump over the proposed agreement.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has previously raised concerns, saying the deal posed a threat to US security, given China’s influence in the region. Mauritius has an economic relationship with China.

Environment Secretary Steve Reed said the UK government was “still waiting” for the view of the Trump administration.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that Trump’s view would “inform the negotiations”, which began under the previous Tory government.

Meanwhile, Ramgoolam said it would be “better that Trump has a look at the agreement” so the US president can see if it “is good or not”.

There had been efforts to get the deal signed before Trump’s inauguration on 20 January. However, the UK changed course, saying it was “perfectly reasonable for the US administration to consider the detail” of any agreement.

The Mauritian prime minister said he was “confident” the new deal would be approved, saying UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had said he intended to “push ahead” with the renegotiated agreement.

Speaking to Mauritian MPs on Tuesday, Ramgoolam railed against the former agreement, which he said was a “sell-out” for Mauritius.

“We have to be inflation-proof. What’s the point of getting money and then having half of it by the end? This is what would happen, we have made the calculations,” he said.

However, he did not reveal the exact amount the UK would pay, saying: “I’m not in a position to give details but let me say something, that package was very badly negotiated.”

Ramgoolam said the previous package had also been tweaked so the UK would pay more in “front-loading” at the beginning of the deal. “That also is being approved I think,” the Mauritian leader added.

Ramgoolam added that the UK would no longer be able to unilaterally act on a clause in the deal where the lease could be extended for 40 years.

This was also denied by the UK government, with the Foreign Office spokesperson saying: “There has been no change to the terms of extension in the treaty.”

Shadow foreign secretary Dame Priti Patel urged the UK government to abandon the deal, saying there had been “very little transparency”.

She told Today:”We keep hearing from the government that this is some kind of good deal – if it’s such a good deal, why are they not being honest about what the details are?

“The government of Mauritius and the people of Mauritius seem to know more about this deal than the British public, the British taxpayer and even people in our own parliament.”

Dame Priti said Sir Keir had “the audacity to tell the British people they will foot the bill and pay for the indignity of his surrender of the Chagos Islands, as he isolates the new US administration by bending the knee to Mauritius and emboldening our enemies with his disastrous surrender deal”.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said the prime minister should “come to Parliament and be honest with MPs” about what she called a “foolish deal”.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage also voiced opposition to the deal, saying if the UK ceded sovereignty of the Chagos Islands, “our value to America” would become “considerably reduced”.

The UK took control of the Chagos Islands, or British Indian Ocean Territory, from its then colony, Mauritius, in 1965 and went on to evict its population of more than 1,000 people to make way for the Diego Garcia base.

Mauritius, which won independence from the UK in 1968, has maintained the islands are its own, and the UN’s highest court has ruled, in an advisory opinion, that the UK’s administration of the territory is “unlawful”.

The Chagos islanders – some in Mauritius and the Seychelles, but others living in the UK – do not speak with one voice on the fate of their homeland.

Some have criticised the deal, saying they were not consulted in the negotiations.

Efforts were made to get the treaty signed before President-elect Trump’s inauguration on Monday, the BBC understands, and it had been expected the Mauritian cabinet would approve the proposal on Wednesday.

The UK plans to hand over sovereignty of the cluster of islands in the Indian Ocean, but to maintain a 99-year lease over the joint UK and US military airbase on the largest island, Diego Garcia.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said it was “perfectly reasonable for the US administration to consider the detail” of any agreement.

Shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel said the latest development was “complete humiliation” for the prime minister because Labour had been “desperate to sign off the surrender of the Chagos Islands before President Trump returns to office”.

The deal has drawn criticism from other politicians in the UK as well as the incoming US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said it poses a “serious threat” to US securityby giving the islands to a country allied with China.

Trump has not publicly commented on the deal. However Reform UK leader and Trump ally Nigel Farage told BBC Newsnight last year the agreement would damage Sir Keir’s relations with the US president-elect.

At Prime Minister’s Questions, Sir Keir defended the deal, saying the negotiations started under the last Tory government and insisting it was the best way to safeguard the military base.

Reports had suggested Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam would sign off an agreement on Wednesday as he attended a cabinet meeting, but it was later announced his attorney general was travelling to London to continue talks.

The UK took control of the Chagos Islands, or British Indian Ocean Territory, from its then colony, Mauritius, in 1965 and went on to evict its population of more than 1,000 people to make way for the Diego Garcia base.

Mauritius, which won independence from the UK in 1968, has maintained that the islands are its own, and the UN’s highest court has ruled, in an advisory opinion, that the UK’s administration of the territory is “unlawful”.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the prime minister was “negotiating a secret deal to surrender British territory and taxpayers in this country will pay for the humiliation”.

Badenoch said there was “no way we should be giving up British territory in Chagos”, claiming Sir Keir was “rushing a deal which will be disastrous” and it would cost British taxpayers billions of pounds.

The cost of the proposed deal to the UK has not been officially announced.

In response to Badenoch, Sir Keir told PMQs the planned agreement would ensure the military base on Diego Garcia can continue operating effectively.

A deal over the Chagos Islands was first announced in October following years of negotiations.

But weeks later, after his election, Mr Ramgoolam said he had reservations about the draft treaty and asked for an independent review.

In a joint statement in October, Mauritius and the UK said the deal would “address wrongs of the past and demonstrate the commitment of both parties to support the welfare of Chagossians”.

The Chagos islanders – some in Mauritius and the Seychelles, but others living in Crawley in Sussex – do not speak with one voice on the fate of their homeland.

Some have criticised the deal, saying they were not consulted in the negotiations.

Under the proposed deal, Mauritius will be able to begin a programme of resettlement on the Chagos Islands, but not on Diego Garcia.

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy has previously played down the criticism, saying it is a “very good deal” for “our national security” because it secured the legal basis of the Diego Garcia military base.

Under the terms of the original agreement, which was announced in October, the UK would relinquish sovereignty to Mauritius over the archipelago but maintain a 99-year lease over Diego Garcia, home to a major UK-US military airbase.It was finalised shortly before an election which then-Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth lost in a landslide defeat.

His successor Navin Ramgoolam has since said he had reservations about the deal, which has also attracted criticism from the opposition Conservative party in the UK and officials in the incoming Trump administration.

When the agreement was first made public after years of talks, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Jugnauth called it a “seminal moment in our relationship and a demonstration of our enduring commitment to the peaceful resolution of disputes and the rule of law”.

The British government has said that it also “protects the long term secure operation of [the military] base”.

Soon after coming into office last month, however, Ramgoolam asked legal experts to review the terms of the deal.

Speaking in the Mauritian parliament on Tuesday, Ramgoolam said that his government had submitted counter-proposals aimed at ensuring that the final agreement aligned with the nation’s interests.

“During the discussions, Mauritius made clear that while it is still willing to conclude an agreement with the United Kingdom, the draft agreement which was shown to us after the general elections is one which, in our view, would not produce the benefits that the nation could expect from such an agreement,” Ramgoolam told MPs.

He did not spell what the counter-proposals were or the exact nature of the objections.

Ramgoolam confirmed that the UK’s response to these proposals was received on Monday and is currently under review.

A delegation of senior officials from the UK, led by Harriet Mathews, director general for Africa, the Americas, and Overseas Territories at the Foreign Office, visited Mauritius last week.

Accompanied by British High Commissioner Charlotte Pierre, she met Ramgoolam on 11 December to further the negotiations.

“We remain confident the agreement is in both sides interests and will continue to work with the new Mauritius government to finalise the deal. We’ve always said we’ll engage with the new administration in order to finalise the deal,” Sir Keir’s spokesperson said, adding that there was no timeline on the deal.

The only hint at what might be the issue from the Mauritian side are comments made last month by Arvin Boolell, the minister of agro-industry and fisheries.

He criticised the former prime minister for granting the UK a long lease over Diego Garcia – he said it was 200 years, though the publicised timeframe was an initial period of 99 years.

“In other words,” Boolell remarked to a newspaper, “the tenant has become the owner of Diego Garcia for 200 years.

“In recent years, the UK has faced rising diplomatic isolation over its claim to what it refers to as the British Indian Ocean Territory, with various United Nations bodies – including its top court and general assembly – overwhelmingly siding with Mauritius and demanding the UK surrender what some have called its “last colony in Africa”.

The government of Mauritius has long argued that it was illegally forced to give the Chagos Islands away in return for its own independence from the UK in 1968.

At the time, the British government had already negotiated a secret deal with the US, agreeing to lease it the largest atoll, Diego Garcia, for use as a military base.

Britain later apologised for forcibly removing more than 1,000 islanders from the entire archipelago and promised to hand the islands to Mauritius when they were no longer needed for strategic purposes.Until very recently, the UK insisted that Mauritius itself had no legitimate claim to the islands.

Under the agreement, which has still to be signed, the UK would relinquish sovereignty over the archipelago but maintain a 99-year lease over Diego Garcia, home to a major UK-US military airbase.

A spokesperson for UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Thursday that Navin Ramgoolam had “indicated he was open” to the historic deal.

Ramgoolam, who was elected prime minister of Mauritius two weeks ago, told the Mauritian parliament he had asked for a review and that the findings will be considered by the cabinet.

When the deal was signed, after years of talks, Sir Keir and his then-Mauritian counterpart Pravind Jugnauth called it a “seminal moment in our relationship and a demonstration of our enduring commitment to the peaceful resolution of disputes and the rule of law”.

But in his election campaign, Ramgoolam and his allies in the Change coalition described the agreement as a “sell-out” motivated by desperation ahead of the vote.

Arvin Boolell, the newly appointed minister of agro-industry and fisheries, had been more specific about the objections in his comments on Monday.

He criticised the former prime minister for granting the UK a long lease over Diego Garcia – he said it was 200 years, though the publicised timeframe was an initial period of 99 years.

The Change coalition are not the only ones with reservations about the deal – Marco Rubio, US President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of state, said in October that the deal posed a “serious threat” to US national security by giving the islands to a country allied with China.

Some groups representing the interests of Chagossians have also expressed disquiet, saying they were excluded from the negotiations.

The British prime minister and his Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, have defended the agreement as a “good deal”.

“I’m very, very confident that this is a deal that the Mauritians will see, in a cross-party sense, as a good deal for them,” Lammy said on Thursday.

The deal is still subject to the finalisation of a treaty.Details of the treaty’s legal text are being worked out and it is expected to go before the UK Parliament for scrutiny next year.