The India-UK free trade agreement (FTA) which was targeted to be signed before Diwali, is on the verge of collapse, according to The Times, London, following the Indian government’s fury over comments made by UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman against its immigrants.
“I do have some reservations. Look at migration in this country the largest group of people who overstay are Indian migrants,” the Indian-origin Braverman recently said in the context of the free trade deal that could increase migration.
The Times quoted government sources in both countries to say that India was shocked and disappointed by her disrespectful remarks. A report in Politico claimed that any plan of a UK visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for Diwali to sign the FTA with his counterpart Liz Truss is also not likely to go ahead.
The Diwali deadline for the pact was during the then prime minister Boris Johnson’s visit to Delhi. Johnson and Modi had great personal chemistry. Joining issue with Braverman, the Indian High Commission in London had said action had been initiated on all cases referred to it under the Migration and Mobility Partnership clinched last year. The pact was signed by Braverman’s predecessor Priti Patel and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.
“Mobility has been the key Indian ask and everything else - financial services, banking, education, rules of origin on whisky, etc, hinges on the mobility ask. And Suella has gone and pulled the rug from under that mobility ask,” a senior British government source told The Times.