Britain’s Indian origin home secretary, Suella Braverman, has indicated she would be unhappy with a trade deal with India that makes too many concessions in her opinion on visas.
Braverman, who is building up a reputation of being even more right wing than her predecessor, Priti Patel, has said her priority is to cut net migration into the UK.
She gave an interview to Fraser Nelson, editor of The Spectator magazine, who observed: “She may face opposition from No 10. Word is that (Liz) Truss wants an ambitious trade deal with India and is prepared to include migration as part of the deal. Braverman doesn’t sound thrilled.”
The home secretary said: “I have concerns about having an open borders migration policy with India because I don’t think that’s what people voted for with Brexit.”
Fraser summed up the government’s position, a continuation of Boris Johnson’s policy: “But no one’s talking about free movement of India’s billion citizens – it’s a question of allowing more visa flexibility as a quid pro-quo for free trade. Would that be so bad?”
Braverman conceded that there may be flexibility for students and entrepreneurs.
She added: “But I do have some reservations. Look at migration in this country – the largest group of people who overstay are Indian migrants. We even reached an agreement with the Indian government last year to encourage and facilitate better co-operation in this regard. It has not necessarily worked very well.”
Nelson added a comment: “If Truss did want to offer visas in a free trade deal with India, it sounds as if she’d have some opposition from her Home Secretary.”
It could be Braverman is thinking of a future leadership contest because a month into Truss’s premiership, there is mounting speculation in sections of the Conservative parliamentary party that the latter ought to be ousted in order to prevent a Tory rout at the next general election.
Braverman spelt out her position on migration: “I campaigned to leave the EU because in part I wanted migration to fall. That was in our 2019 manifesto. If you look at net migration figures, they have not fallen – we’re pretty much at the same level as pre-Brexit.
“We’ve got the levers in place. Priti Patel and Boris Johnson put in the points-based system: we have new visa routes and the power to control who we want to come to the country. I think we should start exercising that power.”
It appears Truss wants a trade deal with India to show Brexit is working, while Braverman wants to be seen to be tough on immigration.
While visas come under the home secretary, the task of negotiating a bilateral deal with India is the responsibility of Kim Badenoch, the international trade secretary, who will also fancy her chances of being a future Tory leader.
She has stated that a post-Brexit trade deal with India will be signed by end of this month but admitted Britain “may not get everything” in the agreement despite hopes of huge boost for the whisky industry.
At the recent Tory party conference in Birmingham, Badenoch told a fringe meeting hosted by the Policy Exchange think tank: “We want something comprehensive, but it has to be right for both countries. But doing a trade deal is not a simple and easy thing. So what we want to do is something that lifts both countries.”
She warned that a deal might not include “everything” that British firms are hoping for. But it could be enhanced at a later date.
“It may not be everything that the services sector wants,” she said. “We may not get everything, we’re not doing a unilateral free-for-all deal. But just because we have a free trade agreement it doesn't mean we can’t do even more later, so that’s the message I would send to the services sector.
“There’s a lot of good stuff I think we can get, but the focus has to be on a deal that is good for the UK and India – not any specific, particular sector alone – it’s got to be a good deal for the country in the round.”
