Abstract
The Indian Government perceived the Brexit vote as an unfortunate development which only added to international instability and a weakening of the West. However, it took no public position, seeing it as a purely domestic matter. Indian firms like Tata that had invested heavily in Britain as their gateway to Europe saw Brexit as an economic negative. They hoped Britain would at least retain a customs union with the EU. As the Brexit process went on, New Delhi concluded that there might be some policy advantages in a Britain outside the EU. One, in any subsequent UK-India Free Tree Agreement negotiations, India would be in a strong negotiating position to extract concessions. Two, British plans to introduce a points-based immigration system after it left the EU would probably be advantageous to Indian immigrants. London, for its part, sought to position itself as India’s overseas financial hub with limited success. A lot of these suppositions will depend on the final nature of Brexit.
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Notes
- 1.
Private conversations with Indian diplomats at the Indian High Commission to the UK, London, November 2018.
- 2.
- 3.
Private conversations with Indian and EU diplomats, December 2017.
- 4.
Private conversations with Indian diplomats during 2017–2018.
- 5.
Private conversation with an Indian official, January 2018.
- 6.
For a detailed account of the differences between India and the UK on this issue, see Paliwal (2017: 260–265).
- 7.
Private conversation with a senior executive, May 2018.
- 8.
Private conversation with Indian diplomats, November 2019.
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Chaudhuri, P.P. (2020). Brexit and India-UK Relations. In: Jain, R. (eds) India and the European Union in a Turbulent World. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3917-6_5
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