Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in London. He has met Keir Starmer. The Joint Statement has been delivered. The FTA has been signed. It will add £25 billion to bilateral trade. Britain is now engaging in trade and investment with India in a way it has not since India’s independence. However, there is one major area the UK is especially focused on, something it hopes the FTA will help it achieve: the British ambition in the Indo-Pacific.

The United Kingdom first flirted with the idea of an Indo-Pacific tilt four years ago. Major powers in the region—such as India, Australia, China, Japan, Russia and the US—already had an Indo-Pacific policy. Talks were already underway on the FTA with India. Since then, the UK has committed to its engagement with the Indo-Pacific as a long-term endeavour. But despite being vocal about its ambitions, it has struggled to generate meaningful partnerships.

While India-UK military ties, defence agreements and joint naval exercises signal a strengthening of relations and increased engagement, it is the FTA that offers the greatest value.

A period of political turmoil has left the UK with four prime ministers in the past four years, including the current PM, Starmer—Rishi Sunak (2022–2024); Elizabeth Truss (2022); and Boris Johnson (2019–2022). Yet one objective remained constant despite the political churn: the vision and tenacity to see through the trade deal with India. Alongside it came a hope: to address the lingering underachievement of the UK’s Indo-Pacific vision, which has yet to materialise into anything of substance.

This is why the FTA is even more important for the UK. It ensures that trade will rise, and with it, defence and political ties will reach even greater heights. India is a power to be reckoned with in South Asia and the Indo-Pacific. The UK recognises it, and India recognises the value of the UK as a close partner within the Western bloc.

India has emerged as the indispensable cornerstone of Britain’s Indo-Pacific ambitions—not merely as a trading partner but as the regional heavyweight that can legitimise London’s presence from the Indian Ocean to the Western Pacific. The UK’s Indo-Pacific Minister, Catherine West, has explicitly acknowledged this reality, describing the UK’s engagement as “a generational mission, a long-term strategic posture". It represents a fundamental shift from episodic deployments to sustained........

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