Eurosceptics to piggyback on Modi’s UK visit

London: Britain’s Eurosceptics hope to use Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the UK this week to further their anti-EU cause.

With the country facing the prospect of an in-out referendum before the end of 2017 and with Prime Minister David Cameron this week announcing his demands for reform of the European Union, the Indian premier’s arrival on these shores is seen as the perfect opportunity to champion trade outside the perceived restraints of the continental bloc.

Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan believes the EU has impeded Britain’s links with India. “Our freedom of action is constrained by Brussels. The visit of Modi shows up the EU for what it is — a hangover from an era when freight costs were high and regional blocs were all the rage,” he said.

“In the internet age, geographical proximity has never mattered less. A British company will trade as easily with a firm in Ludhiana as with one in Ljubljana. Indeed more easily because the Indian firm, unlike the Slovenian one, will be English-speaking.

“When it comes to trade, though, Britain’s natural ties [with India] — of language and law, habit and history, culture and kinship — are scrambled by protectionist European tariffs.”

— The writer is a journalist based in London