Dear Editor,
Just announced is a landmark trade deal between India and the EU. Described by Ursula von der Leyen as the “mother of all deals”, it not only covers free trade between these two huge markets, it also includes defence, technology, climate action and more. The best thing is that it delivers an unambiguous ‘two fingers’ to Trump, who will, here-on, be left increasingly in the cold. And deservedly.
The trade treaty will also concern Putin for at least two reasons – economics, and India’s tacit support for his brutal and unjustified war. It will surely offer a glimmer of hope for Ukraine and some comfort to its long-suffering citizens during these freezing dark nights of constant attack.
It will also send a clear message to both Trump and Putin that their parsimonious and petty trade obstructions, and their senseless plans for expensive and blood-soaked expansionist land-grabs are no match for a world of open and free trading alongside peaceful cultural and social exchanges at all levels.
Britain needs to tread carefully though. Farage – a Trump acolyte if ever there was one – is currently on track to form our next government. He will not be offering relief to the broken society that he has contributed so much to create. His Utopia is Trump’s America, a deregulated, unregulated and violently divided society in which people with money can avoid prison or, as Trump did, avoid the military draft. Unfortunately, the electorate believed his childishly-delivered, simplistic drivel.
But let’s hope this doesn’t happen here. Farage’s Reform UK is now comprised of many disillusioned former Conservatives – ship-deserters, if you like – all of whom slam their former party for reaping chaos and lies. It’s clearly too much of a stretch for them to remember that they themselves – as former ministers – were the backbone of those lies and the chaos.
They are all Brexiters, political relics, adrift, clutching desperately onto the lifebuoy of a failed ideology. Reform UK is once again the Brexit party. If ever there was a dead horse to flog, then it has to be Reform UK.
Sadly, we’re currently on course to find that out the hard way. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
As the EU deepens its economic and strategic ties with India, the question for Britain is not who we rail against but rather, where we choose to stand. Deals like this show what is possible when countries work through cooperation rather than grievance – and how far the UK risks drifting from the action if it continues to define itself by yesterday’s battles.
Richard Hare
Woodbridge
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