This is the opening to my essay on the row over the government’s India trade deal, published in the Observer on 11 May 2025. You can read the full version in the Observer.

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”Two-Tier Keir betrays British workers.” “Labour’s Tax Break for Indian Workers.” “British workers come last in Starmer’s Britain.” “An open door for further mass uncontrolled immigration of low skilled workers.” “This is not the time to trade away immigration controls.”

Quotes and headlines from Nigel Farage, the Daily Mail, Robert Jenrick, Richard Tice and Suella Braverman in response to the UK-India trade deal announced last week. If you want to see the absurdity of current debates about immigration, and the degree of cynicism with which those who claim to support British workers approach the issue, look no further.

The government trumpeted the trade deal as a “huge economic win for Britain” aimed at “raising living standards, and putting money in people’s pockets”. Some rightwing Brexiters, such as Daniel Hannan and Steve Baker, hailed it as a vindication of the decision to leave the EU. But for Farage, Tice, Jenrick, Braverman, and many others, it was a scandalous betrayal of British workers.

The controversy arose from a reciprocal arrangement by which Indian workers, normally employed by an Indian company in India, but who may be working for that company in Britain on a short-term basis, and British workers in a similar situation in India, would not have to pay national insurance (or its Indian equivalent) twice, but only to their home country. This arrangement would not apply to most Indian migrants to this country. Nor would it lead to new mass immigration or to British workers losing jobs.

Britain already has similar reciprocal deals with about 50 countries. Indeed, all temporary workers, paying tax in their home nation, are currently exempted from NI payments for at least a year.

Nevertheless, both Conservative and Reform politicians seized on an opportunity to burnish their anti-immigration credentials, incite fears about Britain being flooded by cheap Indian labour, and be seen defending British workers. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch joined in the denunciation despite, according to Indian officials, agreeing, as trade secretary in the last Tory administration, to a similar reciprocal arrangement (she denies doing so).

There has been much debate about the failure of politicians to take seriously people’s worries about immigration. The controversy over national insurance shows how unseriously self-proclaimed critics of immigration themselves take the issue.

Read the full version of the essay in the Observer.