Finally, and perhaps most significantly, are the geopolitical ramifications. A UK-India pact will help steer India towards the Western trading system, and away from President Xi’s attempts to lock it into a Chinese-dominated Brics alternative complete with its own rules and potentially its own currency system.
Moreover, it will effectively prevent the UK from ever re-joining the EU.
With the combination of the CPTPP and a deal with India, as well as our huge trade with North America, the UK will be locked into an Atlantic-Pacific trading arrangement that will be very different from the Brussels system operating across mainland Europe.
As much as a Starmer-led administration might try to steer Britain back into the EU, it will have become virtually impossible.
There would be too much to give up, with the economy already on a divergent path. The disruption of trying to move back towards a slow-growth Europe would no longer be tenable.
For Sunak, that would be a genuine legacy, and with his family links he is surely the right man to tie up a trade deal.
The trouble is, there are worrying signs it is getting bogged down in details. It is very easy for officials to start dragging their feet, and for lobby groups and vested interests to block progress with demands for extra protection for one sector or another.
There might not be enough time left to get it signed by the time he visits India in September. But the PM should put everything into getting it wrapped up before Christmas. It is simply too important.
