There is something uniquely pathetic about watching the United Kingdom—once a maritime empire that could claim to own the horizons—fumble with the leftovers of its colonial buffet like a man trying to return a half-eaten sandwich to a deli. The latest spectacle in the long, slow-motion decline of ‘Global Britain’ involves the Chagos Islands, a cluster of atolls in the Indian Ocean that most British citizens couldn’t find on a map if their lives depended on it. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a man who possesses the aesthetic and emotional range of a damp spreadsheet, has decided to press ahead with handing these islands back to Mauritius. Why? Because the ‘Rules-Based International Order’ demanded it, and if there is one thing a beige bureaucrat loves more than a middle-manager's pay raise, it is the performative adherence to a legal framework that everyone else ignores.

Of course, the UK isn’t actually leaving. That would require a level of integrity and logistical competence that the current government simply cannot muster. Instead, they are handing over the sovereignty while keeping the keys to the garage—the Diego Garcia military base. It is a classic British solution: give away the house but insist on keeping the right to use the master bedroom for the next ninety-nine years to launch long-range bombers. It is decolonization for the Instagram era—a hollow gesture designed to look good in a UN briefing while ensuring that the American military-industrial complex remains comfortably seated in its favorite armchair in the middle of the ocean.

Enter Donald Trump, the human personification of a loud-mouthed real estate developer who views global diplomacy as a high-stakes game of Monopoly played with live ammunition. Trump has characterized this handover as an ‘act of great stupidity’ and a sign of ‘total weakness.’ For Trump, the world is not a collection of nations or cultures; it is a portfolio of assets. If you own a rock in the ocean, you don't give it back. You build a hotel on it, or at the very least, you use it to flex on your neighbors. His logic is as crude as it is consistent: the UK is being bullied by a smaller nation, and in the MAGA universe, being bullied is the only sin that carries no forgiveness.

The fact that Trump linked this ‘weakness’ to his recurring fever dream of purchasing Greenland is perhaps the most honest thing he has ever said. To him, the Chagos Islands and Greenland are identical—geographic trivia waiting to be commodified by the highest bidder. It highlights the fundamental absurdity of the ‘Special Relationship.’ On one side of the Atlantic, you have a British government desperately trying to convince itself that it still matters by upholding international law. On the other, you have the likely future leader of the free world suggesting that international law is something that happens to other, smaller people. Starmer’s spokesperson insists that the US still supports the deal, which is the diplomatic equivalent of a child claiming his big brother promised to share his toys while the big brother is busy setting the toys on fire in the backyard.

Let’s not forget the Chagos Islanders themselves—the actual human beings who were expelled from their homes in the 1960s and 70s so that the UK could make room for American runways. In this grand geopolitical pissing match between a spreadsheet in Downing Street and a spray-tan in Mar-a-Lago, the actual victims remain exactly where they have always been: in the footnotes. Neither side actually cares about them. For the UK, they are a legal liability to be settled with a check and a shrug. For Trump, they don't even exist; they aren't part of the real estate deal. The islands are merely chess pieces on a board where both players are too incompetent to realize the game ended decades ago.

The British insistence that their position is ‘unchanged’ is the ultimate cope. It is the sound of a middle-aged man insisting he still fits into his wedding suit while the seams are audibly screaming for mercy. By handing over the islands while trying to keep the base, the UK has managed to annoy everyone: the anti-colonialists who see the base as a lingering stain, the imperialists who see the handover as a surrender, and Donald Trump, who just wants more land to put his name on. It is a masterclass in the kind of enlightened centrism that leaves everyone miserable and accomplishes nothing except the further erosion of British relevance. We are watching the sunset of an empire that forgot how to go home, being lectured by a man who thinks the planet is a strip mall. It’s not just diplomacy; it’s a tragedy written by an idiot and performed by cowards.