Just when you think Labour’s Chagos saga can’t get any stranger, it does. Now foreign minister Stephen Doughty has claimed that ceding the archipelago to Mauritius is necessary to avoid sparking war.

Writing in the Times today, Doughty has rather bafflingly insisted that there is a risk foreign powers like China or Russia could exploit an advisory ruling by the International Court of Justice and build intelligence centres near the Diego Garcia US military base.