To wonder what Starmer was thinking with this one

[sideeyes]

Indian nationals being cheaper to hire in the UK? Not paying NI contributions? What is the massive gain we get from this? As a life-long Labour voter this is just another policy that makes me want to cry. He just doesn’t get it, does he?

No, I actually find it interesting if people disagree with me if they are capable of engaging in intelligent and informed discussion and debate. It is the ignorance and prejudice which depresses me.

What difference does it make to "jobs here"?

It extends the period that an Indian firm will be exempt from NI for a seconded worker from an Indian company operating in the UK from one year to three years. What impact has the one year exemption had on UK jobs?

Meanwhile, "jobs here" - automotive, spirits, aerospace, machinery and medical manufacturing - have much greater access and competitiveness to sell in the world's fastest-growing large economy.

What depresses me is that in 4 years time we will have a Reform government and it will be because of people who are unable to see anything outside their little world and who are happy to sling insults at anyone who disagrees with them.

And it won’t be me or you cracking open the champagne I’m
afraid, love. I will be Farage.

Interestingly, the deal appears to remove quite a few barriers to services firms being able to access India. Given the structure of our economy and the nature of eg auditing and accounting, you could then expect the number of longer secondments to India increase in line with other growing markets in large economies. Huge potential benefit.

Are you actually a bot? I’ve seen you post this exact same phrase to someone else before as well as your previous repeated phrase. Or do you just have a limited vocabulary?

Hopefully you’re also following closely and possibly you might learn something if you engage your brain rather than just flinging out rude half baked insults 😁👍🏻

It means the Indian outsourcing companies can offer cheaper people on projects to the UK companies. Cheaper Indians means they are more likely to get the work over UK resourcers or employing UK nationals internally.

We had to get a trade deal with India. It was obvious for years that Indian trajectory is up and ours will struggle to stay flat. We must be a partner with India as they literally are the future consumer, even more so now America has faltered and we had Brexit.
Whether this deal is the best one we could get is yet to be seen. It will cost IT jobs in the UK.

I'm a foreigner here (spouse). I pay NI. I cannot access benefits or pensions here and I also pay a large, compulsory NHS surcharge just in case I were able to access the health system (hollow laugh).

Why exactly should foreigners like me pay NI? Why do you need us to subsidise your social systems that we cannot access?

@HellsBalls i hope it doesn’t cost IT jobs. Maybe it will but the overall benefit to the economy will be worth it. So 5000 IT jobs lost but 10000 export jobs increased? Plus extra sales and manufacturing jobs? Obviously numbers are made up off the top of my head.

if for some reason it doesn’t work out then the deal can be rescinded in the future 🤷🏻‍♀️

But Starmer hasn’t made this deal up with no thought or on his own. Actual economists and experts will have been involved which is where the £4.8 billion economy benefit figure comes from.

Would they be 'economists' like Rachel Reeves? Others are putting the potential benefit at a fraction of this. Yet another dismal Labour failure.

Was just about to post similar @Neemie . @CamillaMacauley, you've got the wrong end of the stick on @Keirawr's post. That poster was saying that your lefty opinions are off putting and just add fuel to the Reform fire.

FWIW, I am a left leaning voter who is more demographically 'Islington' but thinks we BADLY need to re-engage on the (former) Red Wall's issues and communicate effectively and respectfully about it.

(edited because it cleared the quoted post and my standalone made no sense out of context)

I was hoping more for actual civil servant types to be honest.

In my experience, its "almost" impossible to change entrenched views, see the polling on Brexit?
Yes more now think it was a mistake but thats not because people have changed their minds but due to demographics.

Likewise, no one is going to convince me Brexit was a good thing....

The growth of Reform isn't because of insults etc let alone the non witty comments of @Keirawr but because of the perceived failure of the 2 main parties, 14 years of the Tories, are seen as a total failure and Starmer messed up with expenses and WFA... mistakes Labour will never recover from, their defeat in 2029 is 99% baked in now...

So people look for alternatives, LDs & Reform both doing well.

Even some former Remainers are backing Reform, Labour want to "make Brexit work" so no point backing Starmer anymore over that issue.

OK, well I assume they would have more knowledge and expertise then. 😊

Yes, I think Farage may well be cracking open the champagne in a few years time, thanks to his many cheerleaders on the Internet working tirelessly to whip up fear and spread disinformation.

It's a common refrain that calling out prejudice and stupidity is what leads people to vote for far right parties, but that's just nonsense in my experience. If you actually talk to the people who are voting for Reform, the reasons that they give are typically focused on the lies that they have been deliberately fed about what is causing the problems that they face, and a mistaken belief that Reform is going to do something to fix those problems. They will be sorely disappointed, of course, but it will be too late.

I’m genuinely not sure what’s lefty leaning about being supportive of what is widely touted to be a good thing for the economy. If Boris had signed this deal I’d also be supportive of it. I’m happy to see beyond politics for what’s best for the country.

I would say I’m left leaning but I’m not a rabid labour supporter at all. I voted conservative in the local elections last week and Lib Dem for mayor as I felt those 2 individuals were the best candidates.

i totally agree that Labours communication is dismal and I don’t think Starmer is a good leader from a “winning people over” pov. So while I think he’s generally doing a good job I think he’s walking labour into a real mess at the next election and something needs to be done. But the anti labour media bias is annoying. If Boris had signed this same deal the headlines would have been very different.

Yes I always think they do 99% of the legwork behind the scenes regardless of who the govts figurehead is to be honest. 😁

Here's the info on the policy for anyone who wants to read it for the facts, rather than the various media opinion pieces.

www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-india-free-trade-deal-a-deal-for-growth

Any Indian company bringing people over on secondment will still have to comply with employment law here. And they will still have to pay NI in India (24%).

India is not a country full of uneducated labourers

this NI issue is the same for lots of countries - have you issues there or are you relying on a rather odd view of the Indian workforce

You've got to wonder whether all the frothing is down to "is it cos they're brown"? The employers NI arrangements that are being proposed are similar to those that currently exist for Norway, Switzerland and Canada. Where is all the frothing for those countries?

Most economists are saying it is a good deal but all the racists are having a field day spouting actual shit and grabbing headlines.

For those who want to start picking at who the economists might be: British Chamber of Commerce, Flint Global, Ben Ramanauskas at Policy Exchange, David Henig at European Centre for International Political Economy, Miles Celic at TheCityUK, Marco Forgione at the Chartered Institute of Export and International Trade to name but a few.

My Twitter algorithm occasionally goes batshit and presents me with a load of stuff I find offensive, like Free Tommy Robinson posts or whatever. A couple of months back my ‘For You’ tab was absolutely flooded with anti-Indian racism. Tonnes of it. It’s nothing I’d really seen before.

However, having seen it, knowing how much certain groups hate Indians, this flood of objections to a trade arrangement that we also have, uncommented upon, with many other countries makes far more sense.

They can already do that for a year. What's been the impact on local jobs? What's your estimation on the difference three will make rather than one?

Given that India will be reducing barriers to UK service sectors operating in India, and this deal is reciprocal - along with the manufacturing wins - this doesn't feel like the apocalypse that's being painted.

That's a government webpage so hardly unbiased!

Perhaps not but then again, neither is Farage or the 'Mail... Farage was lying yesterday, saying unlimited visas and will undercut UK workers by 20%

Maybe the people who actually negotiated the deal are the ones best placed to give the details of it...

Why does Farage hate the UK economy so much? What does preventing it growing of shrinking if appeal to him so much?