After Ukraine, Starmer zealously wooing India, but at whose cost?

“Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam / A country without a language is a country without a soul” is attributed to Irish Republican leader Padraig Pearse. Little did the schoolteacher know, before his execution for the Easter Rising in 1916, that those who killed him are now saying the same about their own land and language.  The insularity of the peculiar island nation of Britain seems at odds with recent moves to drum up trade deals abroad, which beg the question – just what do they want from India?

When PM Keir Starmer stated this week that to live in the UK you need to speak English, he was at odds with Welsh, Scots, Scots-Irish and Irish speakers under his rule. Judging simply from the online uproar, there are one hundred million Welsh speakers, the same number of Scots conversing in their native tongue and probably the same in the fractured Northern Irish communities.  His move comes after local election results saw the rise of more Anglo-centric politicians from Reform led by Nigel Farage, at a time when London and New Delhi are in discussions over a Free Trade Agreement – something Farage has railed against.

Labelling him “Two Tier Keir”, Farage called the FTA a mechanism to undermine British workers and hire in cheap labour from India. Labour and their supporters pushed back, though many in the UK began to delve into the known details of the arrangement. British negotiators want reduced tariffs for whisky, cars, meat and sweets, as well as access to the local legal, financial and telecommunications sectors.  India wants Westminster to lift restrictions on visa quotas for techies, as well as IT services and medical technologies exports.

With renewed calls from the public for a Brexit review, the need for new trading partners leaves the Labour government in a difficult position. Their “century partnership” with Ukraine, signed in January, is strikingly similar in process to how London now acts with India.  Promising Kiev “mutually beneficial cooperation”, the benefits have turned out to be rather one-sided in the UK’s favour.  With US President Trump entering office, the expedition of this “partnership” resembled more of a dash for cash and solidifying British business in the country under the pretence of protecting it from Russia.

In Ukraine, as in negotiations with India, the UK promotes the ‘green’ agenda, which is admirable.  Admirable until facts and reality come into play.  While the UK has dropped former EU environmental standards, including for water pollution, they will use other standards to ensure that exporting into the country will come at a cost to Indian manufacturers.  However, one must return to Starmer’s stand on language and saving the English soul.

From January 1st, 2024, heavy restrictions were placed on international students bringing family into the UK, with the Tories claiming it would “reduce the burden on the tax-payer”.  It was a move some in higher education termed “discriminatory” to Indian graduate students.  From April 9th this year the rules around Short-Term Study Visas were tightened up for students arriving from countries whose citizens have high asylum application rates, including Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nigeria.  The reasons given for the latter move was that almost 10,000 legal migrants were living in taxpayer-funded accommodation in 2024.  Labour appeared to be ‘getting tough’ on immigration, a major point of discussion in those local elections.

The common denominator of those moves, apart from seeking electoral gains?  Taxes.  As part of the India-UK FTA, Indian citizens on short-term contracts in the UK will pay their taxes to their home country and not make National Insurance Contributions to the UK Exchequer.  Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch called the move an introduction of “two-tier taxes” and on this point, the FTA hit a severe road bump.  Public anger was raised and a Labour win, as with Ukraine, began to wobble.  Something had to happen and it did, within a week PM Starmer pronounced that to live in the UK you had to speak English.

He then, on May 14th, posted on X, that “I will take back control of our borders”, adding “”We will smash the people smuggling gangs at source.”  The increasingly aggressive language of the UK leader is not out of the blue, it appears well tailored to regain the ground lost to the Reform and Conservative parties.  From dressing up in army fatigues and riding in tanks to show his care for Ukraine, he now wants to beat back immigrants before they cross the English Channel on rubber dinghies.

It, also, cleverly cut the ground from under Farage and Badenoch and kept the Indian deal on track.  With a 23% favourability rating in April, and 52% against his premiership, Keir needs a major victory and a deal with New Delhi can deliver this.  However, the question remains, can he and his government deliver and is it in India’s best interests, even with the tax ‘break’.

To continue the Irish theme I began with.  We have an old saying – “Three things never to trust.  The horn of a bull, the hoof of a horse and the smile of an Englishman.”  Given some of my closest friends are English, I’ve gone well past this worry.  Yet it is a peculiar type of Englishman who is looking to do a deal with India and it is not for the benefit of either nation.  PM Starmer made a populist feint, having already shut down opposition to government edicts and while carrying a super majority in parliament.  He demands Russia cease fire, without once attempting to engage with his counterpart in Moscow, or critically analysing the situation on the ground.  He has ordered increased spending on domestic military and sent orders to US suppliers, apparently without considering India’s native military production industry as worthy of consideration.

That the India-UK FTA is in place under this Labour government remains a top priority for London, even if the cost-benefit to India is under question.  According to UK business secretary Jonathan Reynolds, the FTA will cost “less than a tenth” of the additional £1bn in revenue expected from the deal.  He, his PM, cabinet colleagues and British business interests are smiling at the financial boon this will bring to Britain.  However New Delhi would be wise to remember the Irish saying of whose smile to trust.

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