Ex-PM hits out at islands' handover

CEDING the Chagos Islands to Mauritius was "completely the wrong thing to do", former prime minister Boris Johnson has warned.

His former colleague, shadow foreign secretary Andrew Mitchell, has also criticised the move as "not a deal" which previous Conservative foreign secretaries would have struck.

The United Nations' highest court, the International Court of Justice, had previously ruled the UK's administration of the Indian Ocean territory was "unlawful" and must end. London agreed to hand over the Chagos Islands, also known as the British Indian Ocean Territory, to Mauritius in a decision unveiled on Thursday, which is subject to a treaty.