- Wednesday, January 15, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
While recent remarks made by British home secretary Suella Braveman criticising Indian migrants are believed to have put the fast-moving hopes of a trade deal between the UK and India in jeopardy, it seems the British government has taken a go-slow policy on the same.
According to a report by The Independent, London has said that there is no hurry for it to sign the deal with India amid reports that talks with New Delhi are about to crumble.
According to the UK’s department for international trade (DIT), negotiations are underway despite claims that the mood is angry in New Delhi over the remarks that Braverman, who is of Indian origin, made targeting migrants from India, the report added.
When former British prime minister Boris Johnson visited India in April, New Delhi and London set Diwali, which falls on October 24, as the deadline to conclude a deal with reports that Indian prime minister Narendra Modi could travel to the UK to mark the special occasion.
But it now looks London is ready to put a brake on the pace of finalising the deal. The Independent report said that while the DIT sought to assure against the suggestions that the negotiations are heading for a dead end, a spokesperson said that the government would only sign when the terms are appropriate.
“We have a close, positive working relationship with India and a thriving trade partnership worth £24 billion in 2021,” the spokesperson was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
“We continue to seek improvements to our current trading relationship. This is why we are negotiating a high-ambition free trade agreement.
“We remain clear we won’t sacrifice quality for speed and will only sign when we have a deal that meets both countries’ interests.”
The same position was echoed by the official spokesperson of British prime minister Liz Truss who said that while the government still wanted to finalise the deal by Diwali, no date has been finalised for a visit by the Indian prime minister.
“We do want to seek to conclude talks by Diwali,” the spokesman said.
“We haven’t set out any timings for any further inward visits. Obviously, we have an extremely close partnership with India already,” the spokesperson added.
