Rishi Sunak has the right approach to relations with India

Rishi Sunak told the journalists travelling with him to India that he is “fired up” to win the election that most people expect him to lose. He certainly deserves some credit for opening the new political season with some energy. So far all his efforts this year to turn the tide of public opinion that continues to run strongly against him have come to nothing.

Yet he perseveres with the thankless timetable of governing: a party conference, a King’s speech and an autumn statement setting out the government’s fiscal plans. Right now it is the turn of international summitry, at the G20 meeting in New Delhi. To be blunt, there are not many votes in such gatherings but it is nevertheless an important part of the prime minister’s job to use these forums to promote the national interest.

As the first British prime minister of Indian heritage, Mr Sunak was accorded an especially warm welcome but it will count for nothing in the hard bargaining on matters of war and trade.

On the war in Ukraine, Mr Sunak welcomed the New Delhi declaration – a communique obviously drafted well in advance – as containing “very strong language” about the war. This is the kind of doublespeak that gives politicians a bad name because, as everyone pointed out the moment it was published, the declaration contains weaker language on Ukraine than last year’s G20 communique issued in Bali.

The New Delhi document does not mention Russia, even if it does call on countries to “refrain from the threat or use of force to seek territorial acquisition”. But this is diplomacy, and Mr Modi clearly wanted to avoid the wrangling over mere declaratory words that delayed last year’s communique.

Mr Sunak claimed that Russia was “completely isolated” at the summit, which was again more an expression of wish than fact. Neither Vladimir Putin nor Xi Jinping, the leaders of Russia and China, are in Delhi, having sent subordinates in their stead. But India continues to maintain relations with Russia, including in trade.

Mr Modi sees himself in the Indian tradition of seeking the leadership of the “non-aligned” countries, which means adopting a position of equidistance between Russia and the West. Hence his invitation for a representative of the African Union to take a seat and a microphone at the G20 table.

However, Mr Sunak is right to maintain good relations with India, despite Mr Modi’s refusal explicitly to condemn Mr Putin’s aggression. India is “going to be one of the most important geopolitical actors”, as Mr Sunak said. Good relations with India are particularly important if the West is going to take a more censorious view of China’s government, so however queasy we might feel about Mr Modi’s Hindu nationalism we should press ahead with negotiations on the India-UK trade deal.

Plainly, there is a lot of hard bargaining to go before an agreement can be struck, and Mr Sunak was also right, before the summit, to refuse to commit either to a deal or to a deadline – unlike Boris Johnson, whose “deal by Diwali” risked being as bad a deal as his rushed Brexit one.

In such matters, Mr Sunak is an improvement on his predecessor – or predecessors, if we count Liz “49 days” Truss. In his negotiations to improve Northern Ireland’s trade rules in the Windsor Framework, and his returning the UK to the EU’s Horizon science partnership, Mr Sunak has shown mastery of detail and an ability to secure an outcome that benefits all parties.

We trust that he can do the same with an India trade deal, which ought to open up great opportunities for both sides. Whether he will reap any electoral benefit from such diligence from the British people, however, is another matter.