Britain must offer clarity on Brexit: BJP’s foreign affairs boss

Britain needs to offer greater clarity on Brexit if the relationship with India is to develop further, a senior BJP spokesperson said, while also emphasising the challenges that would be faced in any attempt at forging a UK-India Free Trade Agreement.

Speaking at the London launch of the Modi Doctrine at the Indian High Commission on Tuesday, Vijay Chauthaiwale, head of the BJP’s Foreign Affairs Division, said that the visit of Theresa May in early November had occurred in the face of not very high expectations because of the Brexit uncertainty. That uncertainty had been reflected in the visit, and to ‘take the relationship to the next level we will need to get a lot of clarity from the British side,” he said during the discussion on Indian foreign policy. Pointing to the issue of immigration which remained a major obstacle to the relationship he advocated more “pragmatic approach,” pointing to the steady decline in Indian student numbers.

Chauthaiwale is the latest politician to signal the cracks in the UK-India relationship, despite the British government’s insistence that stronger trade relations with countries such as India would be the way ahead for a post-Brexit Britain. While British opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn criticised Britain for failing to treat India as a true partner, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told the BBC earlier this month that India and Britain were no longer “old friends” but were in a “tight professional engagement.”

Chauthaiwale was also cautious about the prospects for an India-UK Free Trade Agreement, and the belief that it would somehow have an “easier path” than a free trade agreement with the European Union, shackled by the differing priorities of its member state. There were a number of issues relating to trade, services, immigration and visas that had stood in the way of the FTA with the EU, he said. “These are all very interlinked. Unless we can have an integrated approach these issues will remain.”

Asked about the party’s position on US President Elect Donald Trump, Chauthaiwale said his personal opinion was that the US India-relationship had matured to a level that it would take someone working “very hard to disrupt it.”

He also noted bipartisan Congressional support for strong India relations and the backing that the Hindu Republican Coalition had given him. He noted positive comments that Trump had made of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “The message in it is that Trump wants to have good relations with India.”

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