Johnson backs Sunak to keep India ties ‘dynamic’
EX-PRIME MINISTER URGES END TO ‘MYSTERIOUS DELAY’ ON FREE TRADE DEAL
TIES between the UK and India will remain on a “phenomenal upward trajectory” under UK prime minister Rishi Sunak, the country’s former premier Boris Johnson said last Saturday (12).
The two countries need each other now more than ever as “we live in dangerous and turbulent times”, he said.
Johnson also called on the two sides to finalise a free trade agreement (FTA), saying he could not wait until next Diwali for it.
“No mission that I have led has been as successful as the one in April this year when I arrived in Gujarat and was greeted like Sachin Tendulkar. There were pictures of me everywhere and literally thousands of people dancing on the streets,” Johnson said in his address at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in New Delhi.
Noting that Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and he had discussed the future of the India-UK partnership during his visit,
Johnson said they had “fantastic talks” and there have been results.
“India has become the number one supplier of overseas students to the UK. There are 108,000 Indian students in the UK to support our education industry,” he said.
Johnson pointed out that even without an FTA, the two countries have seen bilateral trade go up by 28 per cent.
“Let us finally deliver that free trade agreement which mysteriously seems to have developed a flat tyre since I left office. Prime minister Modi and I said it will be done by Diwali. I’m not going to wait till the next Diwali before we do that deal. I wonder what the hold-up is,” Johnson said.
“The government that I was proud to lead boasted more ministers who could trace their origins to India than any other government in the world. The crowning achievement of my approach is that my replacement himself is of Indian-origin,” he said.
Last month, Rishi Sunak was installed as Britain’s first Indian-origin prime minister after the brief tenure of Liz Truss, who had taken over after Johnson stepped down as Conservative party leader.
“I know that under Rishi, this relationship, so strong and so dynamic, is going to follow the same phenomenal upward trajectory. We need each other now more than ever because, as PM Modi and his external affairs minister S Jaishankar had said, we live in dangerous and turbulent times,” Johnson said.
The former prime minister also criticised Russian president Vladimir Putin for a “vile and unprovoked invasion” of Ukraine.
“Even if the UK and India were not drawn together by ties of love, sentiments, family, by trade, commerce…if we were not tied together by economic self-interest, we would be drawn together for this fervor and vital reason that we two democracies are forced to cope together with the irresponsible and sometimes dangerous behaviour of the world’s coercive autocracies,” he added.
Johnson offered his predictions. “Putin will lose and deservedly so... Putin will be beaten by simple heroism of love and country by the people of Ukraine,” he said.
Asserting that the conflict was a “disastrous advertisement” for Putin’s “war machine”, he said Russia’s exports of military equipment would be badly affected.
The disastrous miscalculation by Putin would severely weaken Russia and greatly strengthen China, he said. “The bear is looking increasingly forlorn and pushed around by a giant, assertive Kung Fu Panda.”
Johnson also hailed the India-UK collaboration in providing vaccines against Covid to the world, and compared the successful handling of the pandemic in democracies like the UK and India to that of “autocracies” such as China.