On Friday 21st March 2025, the sun will set on the British "Empire"

[marc_abonce]

I didn't know about this until now, but this BBC article seems to disagree with OP's Reddit post: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy78ejg71exo

> One of the largest islands on the tropical atoll, Diego Garcia, will remain a joint US-UK military base and is expected to remain so for 99 years with an option to renew.

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

So it seems like the military occupation will continue for at least 99 years if not longer, and the still living Chagossian islanders may never be allowed to return back home.

By the way, since this is a tech forum, it's worth pointing out that every time you pay for a .io domain you're funding this ongoing ethnic cleansing. BIOT is not a country, it has no permanent population and is currently nothing but a military base in a land that was completely ethnic cleansed in the 1970's.

[atombender]

According to the British government, it receives no revenue from the .io domain, which owned by a private equity company. So if that is the case, the .io domain does not fund ethnic cleansing.

As to Diego Garcia, my understanding is that Mauritius will be given back sovereignty of it, as well as the other islands, and that the UK and US governments will merely lease the island of Diego Garcia. This is not an unusual arrangement. The UK and US have military bases around the world on foreign territory, to the exclusion of the local population.

Not so sure if this qualifies as ethnic cleansing when nobody is being forcibly removed from anywhere, since they're not actually there.

[mixdup]

> One of the largest islands on the tropical atoll, Diego Garcia, will remain a joint US-UK military base and is expected to remain so for 99 years with an option to renew.

This is not the same thing as maintaining sovereignty. The US has bases in many countries, but it's not native US soil

[Archelaos]

Traditionally, political thinking makes a distinction between de jure and de facto sovereignty, or respectivley juridical sovereignty and empirical sovereignty. By limiting the transfer of de facto sovereignty to a period of 99 years, the treaty ensures that it cannot be interpreted as a transfer of de jure sovereignty. However, in the context of international law the term "sovereignty" without further qualification is nowadays widely used in the sense of de jure sovereignty. This emphasises the thought that under international law a transfer of sovereignty can only be the result of a legal act -- in other words: de jure sovereignty has priority over de facto sovereignty.

[oohaargh]

There's a difference between being a British colony and allowing Britain to have a military base on your land, so nothing in disagreement with the original post there

[dang]

Recent and related:

UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41729325 - Oct 2024 (282 comments)

Also:

UK to hand over Chagos back to Mauritius - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33463586 - Nov 2022 (52 comments)

[zahlman]

Thank you. I genuinely would have had no idea otherwise, why this specific date.

[mindcrash]

That's absolutely false.

Australia and New Zealand are both in the sun and King Charles III is still head of the government of both Australia and New Zealand, and both are thus part of the British Empire.

The government of Australia is led on his behalf by governor-general Sam Mostyn (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia) and the government of New Zealand is led on his behalf by governor-general Cindy Kuro (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand)

[fennecbutt]

As a Kiwi, no. The monarch being head of state is purely ornamental. The head of state only has a few honourary powers that can't really be used for diddly squat.

It's this way for tradition reasons, same as why we didn't end up changing our flag in the end, after a million dollar referendum. Tho I wish we were able to use the silver fern flag, that would've been rad.

[N19PEDL2]

It depends on what you mean by the British Empire today. If it is the countries whose head of state is the King of England, then you are right. If it is the territories ruled by the government of London (directly or indirectly), then neither Australia nor New Zealand, both sovereign states, are part of it anymore.

[lawrencejgd]

Relevant What If from Xkcd https://what-if.xkcd.com/48/

[ARandomerDude]

Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place for demons.

[a_dabbler]

Hong Kong handover is not recent and I don't see how you can claim it has "gone badly for local residents".

[AustinG08]

the world runs on brownie points now, prepare accordingly