UK Government needs to 'let go' of immigration and visa issues to build a successful relationship with India, former British High Commissioner to India, Richard Stagg told audience at a meeting of the Indo-British All Parliamentary Group (APPG) in the House of Commons on Monday. He raised his concerns over the lack of UK's strategy on achieving closer ties with India, at the event, that was organised to mark the launch of 'The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India's New Gilded Age' by former Financial Mumbai Bureau Chief James Crabtree, and was chaired by Labour MP Seema Malhotra, the Vice Chair of the Indo-British APPG.
Stagg who was in charge of the British High commission in Delhi between 2007 and 11, and is now the Chairman of Rothschild India, expressed his concerns over the UK government's lack of a clear strategy on achieving
Pointing to defence and security as key areas of cooperation that both countries should be doing more, Stagg said speaking about the issues. He also insisted that it is on 'lack of trust' between both sides that is holding the relationship back, according to a report by the PTI.
These clashes over visas have reached its climax after the new student visa relaxed terms dont include India, but China. On the other hand UK giving refuge to Mallya, Nirav Modi have also affected the relationship further. It is believed PM Narendra Modi did not sign a MoU over illegal immigrants because of the 'current tension'.
Stagg, who is involved with trade negotiations between India and the European EU over the years, warned that it was the UK which had the most difficulty on issues such as financial services, legal services, taxation and visas that prevented an India-EU free trade agreement (FTA) being struck. Therefore, a post-Brexit FTA between India and the UK is unlikely to prove any easier.
Malhotra, chairing the event said that while India is often referred to as one of the key countries within the post-Brexit global context, in recent months relations had hit a rough patch largely due to visa issues.
Champa Patel, Head of the Asia-Pacific Programme at Chatham House added that there is a knowledge gap abourt what modern India is about. In many ways, the UK is living in a past that is gone, geopolitics is completely different. The UK is sleepwalking into irrelevance if it doesn't recognise that soon, the PTI reported.
Crabtree told the gathering that there is much more that we can do on the visa issue but the idea of Global Britain and Brexit seem to be in dynamic tension.
