Starmer secures ‘landmark' trade agreement with India

Sir Keir Starmer has struck Britain's biggest post-Brexit trade deal, hailing a "landmark" agreement with India that will boost trade with the country by £25.5bn.

- ARCHIE MITCHELL KATE DEVLIN and DAVID MADDOX

In what the prime minister is billing as a major coup, he said the agreement, which focuses on whisky, gin, cars and cosmetics, will boost the economy and cut prices for consumers.

The opening up of international trade with one of the world’s biggest and fastest-growing economies comes as the prime minister attempts to deal with Donald Trump’s latest moves in the battle over tariffs on imports to the US. The most recent row came after the US president announced his intention to impose 100 per cent tariffs on films from outside the US – a policy that, if implemented, threatens to destroy the British film industry.

Labour made much of Sir Keir securing a deal with India, which successive Tory governments have failed to land following Brexit. A major sticking point in the talks was believed to be India’s demand for looser visa restrictions for its citizens coming to the UK, but the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) said this would have no impact on Britain’s points-based migration system.

Criticism of the government’s achievement was led by Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, who was trade secretary in the last Conservative government and claimed to have refused to sign an almost identical deal. She said on X (formerly Twitter): “I refused to sign this deal because: 1. Tax refunds for Indians not available to us; 2. Visa requests too high; 3. Ceramics and Aluminium industries would be screwed. When Labour negotiates Britain loses.”

Ms Badenoch signed the other big post-Brexit free-trade deals, with Australia and New Zealand, which have been seen as bad news for UK farmers. Securing a post-Brexit deal with India, one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, has been a holy grail for successive prime ministers, with Boris Johnson famously promising to strike an agreement by Diwali in October 2022.