Lord Bilimoria: UK should welcome people from overseas

The Indian-born peer is exasperated by official policy on foreigners studying and working in the UK

As a 19-year-old in India in 1981, Karan Bilimoria was unusual in wanting to study in the UK. Many of his contemporaries were headed for the US. He remembers them asking: “What are you doing going to Britain? It’s a loser of a country.” Family and friends told him that if he stayed on in the UK after qualifying as an accountant, he would never amount to anything. He was a foreigner — and Britain was riven with prejudice.

Did he amount to anything? The 53-year-old Lord Bilimoria of Chelsea — chancellor of the University of Birmingham, honorary fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge and founder of Cobra Beer, which supplies 97 per cent of the UK’s licensed Indian restaurants — thinks he probably did.

His friends were not wrong about the UK of the early 1980s. “The Britain I came to was the sick man of Europe. It was a country that had no respect in the world economy,” he says. And while he did not personally experience the prej­udice he had been warned about, when he trained as an accountant at what is now EY, there was only one Indian partner. “And they said it was because he had an English wife,” he says.

But in the years after he arrived as he was making his way from accountancy to a law degree at Cambridge university, the UK changed. The old barriers were swept away, and not just for Indian immigrants. “If you hadn’t gone to the right school and the right university, many career paths were limited,” he says. “I saw that all change in front of my eyes, and I put that down to Margaret Thatcher. I saw her transform this country into a country that economically was going places.”

For many years, he was a member of the Conservative party. At one time, he even thought of attempting to become a Conservative MP. But he resigned his membership some years ago. He sits in the House of Lords as an independent cross-bencher. He is a critic of the Conservatives’ policies on immigration and foreign students and is particularly fierce about Theresa May, the home secretary.

We are sitting in the meeting room of Cobra’s offices overlooking an autumn sun-dappled square in central London. Lord Bilimoria is in a smart dark suit, a paisley handkerchief peeking out of his jacket pocket, but the young staff bustling around are casually dressed. The place looks more like an advertising agency than a beer company headquarters.

What are they all doing? There is a tele­phone sales team selling beer to Indian restaurants. When the area managers meet up, they do it here. “We have the most authoritative database of all the Indian restaurants . . . which restaurants are opening and closing. So this is where all that happens.”

The company owes its start to something Lord Bilimoria did not like when he arrived in the UK: gassy beer. He started brewing Cobra as a more palat­able option in India. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the first bottle being imported into the UK.

He may have been a nervous immigrant to the UK, but his Zoroastrian Parsi family back home, while not wealthy, were distinguished military officers. His grandfather was one of the first Indians at Sandhurst. His father was a general. A cousin was chief of the Indian navy.

Where did the interest in beer come from? There were some family precedents: his maternal great-grandfather ran a liquor business near Hyderabad.

He relaxes as he tells the story. His accent is posh English, with the occasional Indian inflection. He swings a foot up to cross his legs, a flash of bright red sock matching his cuff links. It is easy to see his story as one of untrammelled success, but Cobra came close to collapsing three times.

The first was in 1998 when Tandoori Magazine, a trade title in which he had a 45 per cent stake, criticised service in Indian restaurants. Lord Bilimoria had no hand in the article, but the restaurants decided to boycott Cobra. It took a year to persuade them to buy his beer again. He had to cut staff numbers from 120 to 17. “We had to make awful, tough decisions just to survive.”

Lord Bilimoria is a big admirer of Mr Modi. “I think that he is a breath of fresh air in terms of the things he’s saying, the initiatives he’s started, whether it’s Clean India — huge, huge requirement there — whether it’s Make In India, encouraging manufacturing. He’s set a target for manufacturing. I think we need to do the same over here.”

He admires Mr Modi’s speaking skills too. “He’s a brilliant orator. If you hear Prime Minister Modi speak in Hindi, I would go so far as to say he’s one of the top four orators in the world today.”

Who are the other three? “Archbishop Desmond Tutu is absolutely superb. Bill Clinton is brilliant and Tony Blair at his best is fantastic.”

Ten years later, and growing fast, Cobra needed investment and agreed to Diageo, the drinks conglomerate, taking a substantial minority stake with a full sale five years later. The due diligence was done and Lord Bilimoria went on holiday, expecting to come back and sign the deal. While he was away, he got a call. “They said, ‘The deal’s off, we’ve got cold feet and we don’t want to go ahead’.”

Luckily, he had a Plan B, a bank loan. Days after the money arrived, Lehman Brothers went bust. His bank told him it would not have lent him the money if he had asked for it after that. “It was that close.”

As the financial crisis bit, a hedge fund investor in Cobra insisted he put the company up for sale. This was near-collapse number three. Lord Bilimoria calls it “the most painful process at the worst possible time”. Instead, Molson Coors, the North American beer company, which brews in the UK at Burton-on-Trent, agreed to a joint venture, which has given Cobra stability and, he says, profitability.

He devotes much of his energy to supporting foreign students. He finds it an infuriating task. Higher education is one of Britain’s great export industries — “except we don’t send goods out there; we bring students into the country” — and the Conservative government is making it harder for them.

He has just heard that six Indian students with places at Cranfield School of Management, where he also studied, have had their UK visa applications refused. “How ridiculous is that?” Students who come to the UK establish life-long links with the country, becoming its champions and supporters, he says.

He blames Ms May for her hostility both to foreign students and to valuable, legal immigrants. “She is on a rampage. I have said this and I will say it time and again: she is economically illiterate when it comes to immigration.”

Ms May, he says, tried to end foreign graduates’ already limited ability to stay on to work. “She goes and makes a statement before the [2015 UK] elections: I want every foreign student to leave the day they graduate. [Chancellor] George Osborne had to step in and say, we will not have that in the manifesto, we’re not going to do that. But this is how rabid she is.”

He is calmer about the House of Lords. It should be smaller, but it should not be elected, he says. “The more I have studied it the more I realised how lucky we are to have this institution. You’ve got world-class people there, world leaders in their fields and you’ve got that amazing input that scrutinises legislation, challenges government, debates.

“In an elected house you’d never get those people, they wouldn’t stand for election. You’d get people who were rejects from the House of Commons.”

“Theresa May is economically illiterate when it comes to immigration” – Lord Bilimoria

 

Cobra Beer tycoon Lord Karan Bilimoria has described Home Secretary Theresa May as “economically illiterate” when it comes to immigration and expressed serious concerns at the government’s treatment of everyone from curry chefs and nurses to international students.

 

In an interview with the UKAsian, Lord Bilimoria – who was recently appointed President of the UK Council for International Student Affairs (UKCISA) – reiterated calls for overseas students to be taken out of the government’s net migration targets.

 

The life peer is one of a string of top entrepreneurs who have warned that the government’s controversial crackdown on international students – including the scrapping of the Post Study Work (PSW) visa and draconian restrictions on working – coupled with the often venomous rhetoric against immigration is harming the British economy and damaging perceptions of Britain abroad.

The Hyderabad-born millionaire was particularly scathing about Mrs May whose time in office has seen a dramatic decline in the number of international students from outside the European Union as well as such measures as the “Go Home or Face Arrest” vans in London.

 

Many international students – and other migrants from outside the EU – say they are being unfairly targeted as the government struggles to stem the flow of migrants from Europe.

 

The result of which is that an increasing number of non-EU migrants are finding it ever-more difficult to travel to the UK or remain here.

 

Under new measures announced by Mrs May, international students will be required to leave Britain as soon as their studies are complete.  Foreign nurses, meanwhile, will be required to earn more than £30,000 if they are to remain in the UK.  And the list goes on.

 

The UKAsian caught Lord Bilimoria in an impassioned mood.

 

On his own experiences as an international student in the UK:

 

I’ve been speaking about international student affairs particularly with regards to immigration now for a while.  I was an international student myself when I came over to this country as a 19-year-old for my higher education and I know what it’s like to be an international student in the UK.  I know how valued being an international student is for someone coming from abroad and how British higher education is regarded overseas.  It’s very prestigious and very special and it’s great to have the opportunity to study here.  However, I also know how expensive it is to study in Britain.  Not only the cost of the course but the living expenses.  I had to get a number of scholarships.  For example I’m a Tata scholar and I managed to raise the rest of the money – some of them were loans, some of them were grants, some was from family.  So when the government allowed students to work while they were studying that was a huge boost because not only does it give students the work experience that is so vital, they earn some money to help pay for their education.

 

Then in 2007 the Post Study Work (PSW) visa was brought out in England and Wales.  It was an excellent measure because it’s a huge advantage for a foreign student to have the ability to work for two years, to gain that work experience to build the relationships with Britain and to earn some money to pay for the expense they have incurred in gaining that education.  Sadly the coalition government in 2010 reversed everything.  They’ve brought in the ability to work but in a very difficult way where you are given a few months to try and find a job after you graduate.  You also have to earn a certain salary and get a company to sponsor you.  The hurdles are so much that very few international students are able to stay on and work.

 

On public attitudes:

 

Unfortunately this is completely out of synch with what the British public feel.  There have been surveys done which show very conclusively that an overwhelming majority of the public feel that international students should be allowed to stay on and work after graduation.  So I feel very strongly that the government and in particular this Home Secretary Theresa May have got it absolutely wrong on immigration and particularly with regards to international students.

 

On “Bad Immigration”

 

Illegal immigration – which we see everyday – needs to be handled and cracked down on very strongly and I think everyone would agree on that.  However it’s the good immigration that is suffering because all immigrants are being tarred with the same brush and that is wrong and it is harming our country and harming our economy.  For years I’ve been telling this government, bring back exit checks.  Tony Blair removed exit checks in 1998 so in the intervening years we know who’s come into the country but we don’t know who has left.  So how do you know if someone has overstayed.  How can you track down someone who has overstayed if you don’t know if they have left?  It’s basic because it’s a simple technology that is in place in most countries around the world.  In fact there are several excellent Indian IT companies based here in Britain who could provide the technology for it where every passport – EU and non-EU – should be scanned when someone comes into the country and every passport is scanned when people leave the country.  Now the government is finally saying that they will bring exit checks but I don’t think they are bringing it in as comprehensive a manner as is necessary.

 

If we bring in rigorous exit checks we would have much more control over our borders.  That’s the first thing I would do if I was the Home Secretary or was in charge of immigration.  The next thing I would do is to clamp down on illegal immigration in a very strong manner because that needs to be worked on.  Bogus colleges, need to be shut down.  But why should our 150 universities, of which many are the best in the world, be tarred with the same brush?

 

On the rise of UKIP:

 

There are so many misconceptions about immigration and that is why the immigration rhetoric of this government and in particular Mrs May, which unfortunately the Prime Minister seems to back up.  It’s so damaging because the perception is put out that all immigration is bad.  And of course Nigel Farage completely fuelled this in the run up to the General Election.  But where is Nigel Farage today?  He couldn’t win his own parliamentary seat.  UKIP won a grand total of ONE seat.  But the danger is that they had 13 percent of the vote.  13 percent of the people of this country subscribed to his rhetoric.  That is frightening.  And that rhetoric fuelled the behaviour of people like Theresa May.  And that is wrong and dangerous.  Good immigration has helped this country for decades.  Britain would not be the 5th largest economy in the world today, Britain would not be one of the most successful countries in the world were it not for immigration.  That is a fact.

 

On those vans and those bonds…

 

In every facet of British life – be it economics, academia, business, sport, culture – immigration has helped this country to be where it is today.  But now this immigration rhetoric is damaging all that good immigration and the amazing contribution it has made to this country.  When you say things like we are going to introduce a £3000 bond for people visiting from South Asia and Africa, it sets off alarm bells everywhere.  I travel to India several times a year on business and I know how damaging it was even though the measure was withdrawn straight away.  Then, we had those vans going around London demanding illegal immigrants to go home.  Even Nigel Farage disagreed with that one!  Then to tell international students to get out the moment they finish their degrees.  Even George Osborne had to come in and shut Mrs May down, saying that would not be in the Conservative’s manifesto.

 

Now if you look at the good immigration, there are a huge number of international students in our universities.  I’m the chancellor of the University of Birmingham.  We have a very high proportion of international students.  Then you have the academics.  In our top universities, 30% of all academics are foreign.  Without that we would not have the excellence that we have at our universities.  Who is going to be the next president of the Royal Society, the most eminent position in all of academia?  Sir Venki Ramakrishnan who is a Nobel Laureate from Trinity College Cambridge.  We need people like that.  He could easily be in America.  In fact, we are competing with American universities like Harvard which have endowments running into the billions of dollars.  Our higher education spending is nothing compared to that.  And on of top of that we have to fight immigration rules such as those brought in by Mrs May.

 

More misconceptions…

 

The number of South Asian students to the UK has fallen by half in the last five years.  Foreign students bring in 14 billion pounds a year to the British economy.  It’s one of our biggest exports.  So the financial aspect is vital.  Then you have the enrichment of our own students with the experience of living and studying and working alongside foreign students.   Then you have the life-long links that are forged.  That is one of our biggest elements of soft power.  One in seven world leaders at any given time have been educated at a British university.  It’s very powerful soft power, people who have been enriched by our values.  When it comes to business, again the rhetoric is about “Eastern Europeans coming and taking our jobs”.  Firstly, as long as somebody is paying the minimum wage and the company is operating legally, what is the problem?  Eastern Europeans are allowed to come and work here in the same way hundreds of thousands of our people are allowed to go and work in Europe.  It’s a reciprocal arrangement.  Surveys have also shown that Polish migrants are the most respected by Britons, followed by Indians.  A majority of Britons appreciate migrants.  That is the reality.

 

On the Benefit System…

 

Of course there are some people – both EU and non-EU – who take advantage of our welfare state and our welfare state is generous and that is wrong.  So the reforms that the Prime Minister expects from the EU are absolutely right.  But those who exploit the system constitute a tiny minority.  The vast majority of the immigrants who come to this country are hard working contributors.  They do not draw on the NHS because they tend to be younger and healthier, they do not draw on welfare and they are actually net contributors to this economy.  There’s no question that the benefits system needs reform.  Britain has less than one percent of the world’s population and yet we have four percent of the world’s economy.  We also have seven percent of the world’s welfare spending.  The European Union has seven percent of the world population, 25 percent of the world’s economy and more than half the world’s welfare spending.  This is unsustainable, from Britain’s point of view and from the European Union’s point of view.  We have a welfare state that has to be restructured.  To that extent I subscribe to Iain Duncan Smith’s plans to create a system that is fair and helps those who need the help but on the other hand does not provide a benefits trap where it’s often better financially to not work than it is.  That cannot be right.

 

Immigration…why it’s important…

 

This country requires a lot of immigration at every level.  From an economic point of view, if you look at the city of London, many people don’t realize that we are the number two inward investment destination in the world.  45% of that is financial services because we have the City of London which is the number 1 financial centre in the world.  If you look at who is working in the city of London some of the biggest names in the City are international.  They come from all over the world.  That international talent, the best of the best in the world is what makes the City the top financial centre on the planet.  If you take manufacturing, Jaguar Land Rover – owned by India’s TATA – has been a huge success story.  Tata bought it in 2008 when nobody wanted to touch the company and today their profits are greater than the price they paid for it.  These are the companies that power Britain.  And then you hear about companies that have trouble getting visas for their foreign workers.  That’s wrong.  We need to attract the best and the brightest from around the world.

I support a programme by UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) called ‘SIRIUS’ which allows outstanding young graduates from around the world to come to the UK and set up their businesses here.  What a brilliant idea?  The respect that that creates for Britain as an investment destination is stupendous.

 

On what awaits foreign nurses…

 

I have spoken to heads of hospitals about this and they are flabbergasted.  They keep asking, ‘how can the government do this?  Without foreign nurses the NHS would collapse.’  And how inhuman is it that you ask a man or woman who works in a very noble, service-oriented, selfless profession which doesn’t pay much in the first place, to up and leave because they don’t meet a random salary requirement set by the Home Secretary?  It’s inhuman.  Those same heads of hospitals say that they have had to train these people and when they are booted out they will have to spend millions more to train new nurses as their replacements.  Where is the sense in that?
I have said this before and I will reiterate it, Theresa May is economically illiterate when it comes to immigration.

 

On how Cobra is helping…

 

We supply more than 98 percent of the curry restaurants in this country.  More than two thirds of them are run by Bangladeshis.  If you talk to the Bangladeshi Caterers Association or the industry as a whole, they are concerned that they are unable to bring in the skilled chefs they need from India and elsewhere in the sub-continent because immigration rules are so prohibitive.  The situation is mind-boggling.  I go around the country giving talks and British people talk about how much they love curry.  This is our national dish because true entrepreneurs have gone to High Streets across Britain, knowing no one, opening up businesses, developing business, gaining customers and taking the curry to everyone around this country.  Then you have a government which says, ‘Thank you very much, we love the curry but if you need skilled chefs to carry on your good work, you’re not allowed to get them’.  That’s just wrong.  This is why we’ve teamed up with some of the best chefs in this country, people like Atul Kochar, Alfred Prasad, Vivek Singh, Cyrus Todiwala, and Vineet Bhatia who are helping us now to provide lessons from their learning which they are sharing with restaurateurs around the country with workshops which Cobra Beer is funding.  Free of charge for restaurants so that these award-winning Michelin-starred chefs can share their best practice with any restaurant in the country.  It’s been popular with restaurateurs and we have a queue of restaurants lined up to attend these workshops.  So in our own small way we are helping the industry because we know they cannot get the skilled workers that they need from overseas from South Asia.

 

So the best thing could be if this government could get sensible about immigration.

Speaking about the appointment, Lord Bilimoria noted the excellence of the UK’s universities on the world stage and praised the significant contribution that international students provide to our economy and to Britain’s society as a whole.  As a previous international student to the UK, Lord Bilimoria is certainly well placed to represent the concerns of students travelling from abroad and he has vowed to represent all international students to the best of his ability.

Britain’s universities are amongst the finest in world, along with those found in the US, and international students make a vast contribution to the richness of student life in the UK, as well as to our economy – international students add £14 billion to the UK economy and make our higher education sector one of our largest and most successful exports. The strength of the UK’s higher education sector is clear to see on the world stage with one in every seven world leaders being educated in a UK university.

I am very pleased with all the work that UKCISA does to best represent the voice and mass of the international student body, particularly as I myself was an international student. I am enormously grateful to have been given the opportunity to lay down roots in the UK, where I found a second home, an open-armed welcome from the student community, and a chance to make an economic contribution to this country after I founded Cobra Beer. International students build generational long links with the UK, such as in my case where I was the third generation of both sides of my family to be educated here in Britain.

This appointment enables me to fully support the UKCISA manifesto and make a full commitment to speaking on behalf of Britain’s talented international student community in Westminster, in Whitehall, to the UK business community and around the world. In my new role I hope to represent our bright young people from overseas and to urge the government to reconsider its strategy towards those who have travelled from all over the world to learn in our world-class universities.

Britain urgently needs more skilled and talented graduates, yet its disparaging rhetoric towards immigrants among those in power, paired with our Home Secretary’s refusal to remove students from immigration targets, broadcasts the wrong message to those hoping to study here. As a result, we have seen members of the international student community turn its back on Britain in vast numbers. I aim to do all I can to turn this worrying trend around by promoting the huge benefits of studying in Britain’s great universities and pushing for talented and highly skilled students to be able to stay in Britain after graduation, through schemes like the two year post study work visa – which should be reintroduced. These measures will benefit international students, while strengthening the British economy and making Britain a hub for knowledge, skills and business.

In the article, he put forward the case for implementing a coherent immigration policy that encouraged bright students to remain in the UK and explained the reasons why he is optimistic about Britain’s future.

Cobra beer founder Lord Bilimoria on Tories trying to be “nastier” than Ukip, and “economically illiterate” Theresa May

The crossbench peer and lager tycoon Karan Bilimoria lashes out at the government’s immigration rhetoric, calls our levels of defence spending “dangerous”, and questions Ed Miliband’s knowledge of business.

Considering most household name beers are centuries old, it comes as a surprise to me that it’s only the 25th anniversary of Cobra beer this year. That’s 26 years since Karan Bilimoria, then a 26-year-old graduate, became fed up with drinking gassy lagers when out for a curry, and decided to create something new.

“I came up with the idea at university,” he tells me. “It was very simple; I hated fizzy lagers and I loved English ale, real ale, and so I came up with the idea of a beer that would have the refreshment of a lager and the smoothness of an ale combined.”

After persuading the best brewmaster in India to create his new beer, and ditching the initial brand name “Panther” (it’s not pronounced the same throughout the world, and just wasn’t as “short, sharp and memorable” as“Cobra”), Bilimoria and his friend began delivering Cobra beer from the back of their “battered old Citroën deux chevaux called Albert”.

Now a crossbench peer and the owner of what has become one of the most globally popular beers, Bilimoria is concerned that students who wish to study in the UK are being deterred by anti-immigration rhetoric. He came to Britain in 1981 from India to study, and built a successful company. He fears that foreign talent is now being put off coming to Britain due to the government’s approach to immigration.

“I’ve found it really worrying, I’ve found it hugely damaging,” he tells me, shaking his head. “It has unfortunately been completely fuelled by Nigel Farage and Ukip, and it surprises me and worries me the following that they have in the polls…

“Unfortunately the Conservative party has jumped on this bandwagon, Theresa May the Home Secretary in particular, and instead of having a sensible approach to immigration, almost trying to compete with Ukip on immigration as to who can be the nastier one.

“It’s created a very negative approach to immigration, which is wrong, and I believe we should have a more balanced view on immigration, looking at all its aspects.”

He adds: “There is no way Britain would be where it is today without the contribution of the ethnic minority and religious communities going back over the decades. And here is this picture being painted that immigration is bad, immigration is damaging Britain.”

Bilimoria despairs of the Home Secretary Theresa May’s attitude towards migrants. It was her department that trialled the loathed “Go Home” vans, fiddled around with visa rules, and mooted that international students should be sent home immediately after finishing their university courses in Britain.

“In countries like India, you hear ‘does Britain want us?’ The number of Indian students has plummeted… the rhetoric has been very damaging; it’s created this damaging impression abroad.

“And Theresa May, I believe is economically illiterate when it comes to immigration. When it comes to business. Look at the City of London, we would not be the Number 1 global financial centre if it were not for the international expertise that works in the City of London.

“Yet you hear of firms that have visa issues bringing in staff. The Indian restaurant industry has trouble bringing in chefs, because of the changes in the visa rules… Here’s an industry that employs hundreds of thousands of people, billions of pounds to the economy, contributes to the taxes, produces food that this country loves – we’re a nation of curryholics – and yet we thank the industry by not allowing them to bring in the skilled staff that they need.”

“And they [the government] are really out of tune with what the public wants on this matter. Foreign students should be encouraged to stay on and start their businesses over here. You poll the public, and they will say of course they should be allowed to start their businesses here. Look at me.

“It’s very damaging, it’s very short-sighted.”

Yet Bilimoria also has strong words for the Labour party. “I don’t believe Ed Miliband understands business,” he says. “I don’t believe business has been a priority for him, that’s been demonstrated through the lack of mentioning it in major speeches, and through the way he’s tried now to demonstrate he’s pro-business by completely showing again a lack of understanding of business.”

The peer is particularly scathing about Miliband’s focus on zero-hours contracts. “Yes, zero-hours contracts is an issue, but making it the major plank of the major political debate that they had? It’s important to create jobs. Yes, you never want zero-hour contracts to be abused. But you never hear him talk about job creation, wealth creation, which is the most important thing.

“I’m also very critical of the current government,” he continues. “With defence, I really think they should commit to the 2 per cent NATO commitment. It’s negligent to have an army now that is so small; it’s dangerous in today’s world. Whether it’s the Russian situation, Isil, Middle Eastern situation, and who knows what’s going to come next? I [also] criticise this government for under-investing in higher education. We underfund our universities by half what the United States does, below the EU average, and below the OECD average. We should be investing more in R&D and innovation.”

As founding chairman of the UK-India Business Council, Bilimoria has joined various prime ministers’ trade delegations to India. He has accompanied Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron on such visits. He reveals that in a meeting ahead of his trip with Cameron, he warned him to be more positive about what Britain has to offer:

“I said to David Cameron in the last briefing meeting before we went out: ‘Come on, shout from the rooftops about all our amazing capabilities that we don’t appreciate in our own country, and this message has to be communicated within the country to give us the confidence of what we’re doing and never taking it for granted, but also for the outside world’.

“I never want anyone to think of Britain, as they did in India when I was a teenager, as a loser country and the Sick Man of Europe and a has-been. We are a country that always should be at the top table of the world, and always should be at the forefront, the cutting-edge of innovation and creativity.”

So in spite of such negativity from our politicians, does Bilimoria remain optimistic about Britain’s role in the world?

“Very optimistic,” he replies. “But I hate it when it’s damaged by this immigration rhetoric of the Nigel Farages and Theresa Mays of the world, it’s so unnecessary, it’s so damaging – it undermines all this.”

I’m sure a number of voters would drink to that.

 The article is available at the New Statesman website here

As former international student himself, Lord Bilimoria remains a vocal support of the rights of people to study in at British universities, as well as being allowed to remain and work in the country after graduation.

The world’s brightest will shun the UK if isolationist rhetoric doesn’t stop now

We all have our own image of UK entrepreneurship. Sir Richard Branson is a common first choice, and Sir James Dyson is another. For me, it is the Indian Restaurateur.

When I first founded Cobra Beer 25 years ago, it was these tireless, unsung heroes of UK entrepreneurship who placed their trust and belief in my business. It is thanks to them that, today, I can see my Indian beer fill patrons’ glasses – both in the curry house and in that most British of all institutions, the pub.

That is what makes our economy one of the greatest in the world. It gives migrants the chance not only to build a business, but to see it become a part of the UK’s national identity – what, after all, could be more British than going out for a chicken tikka?

But as my own company has grown, so too has Britain’s antipathy towards migrants like myself. When I started Cobra in 1989, a little over 10 per cent of people considered immigration to be the most pressing issue facing the country; today it is nearly 40 per cent.

A report published this week by London First (and commissioned by Boris Johnson) highlights just how real the dangers of Britain taking the wrong path are. Calling openness to immigration one of the “critical underpinnings” of London’s success, it warns that turning away talented people could hamper Britain’s ability to remain competitive.

For a nation that still exports more to Switzerland than it does to India, this is sound advice. The long-term prospects of our economy depend upon Britain’s ability to successfully pivot its focus towards emerging Asian markets such as India and China.

Yet, in 2013, UK universities experienced a 25 per cent drop in the number of Indian-born students enrolling. Feeling spurned by Britain’s isolationist rhetoric, the world’s brightest and best are voting with their feet.

When politicians, like home secretary Theresa May, speak of moving towards “zero net student migration”, by sending foreign graduates home after they finish their studies – as she did last month, before having her proposals quashed by George Osborne – they are exhibiting a startling degree of economic illiteracy. While I’m glad that these specific plans look unlikely to happen, the broader shift in Britain’s immigration debate has not gone unnoticed abroad.

I recall being at a lecture in London where the Australian education minister Christopher Pyne thanked the UK government for its immigration policies because of the boost they provided to Australia’s higher education sector. Between May and Nigel Farage, we can hardly be surprised that Indian students are choosing to study in Brisbane and Canberra rather than Birmingham and Cambridge.

Today, 42 per cent of current international students profess an intention to set up their own business following graduation, but only 14 per cent wish to do this in the UK. If the government, and May in particular, persist with their vendetta, it will only be a matter of time before we turn away the next Steve Jobs or Sir James Dyson.

This year, Britain faces a fork in the road. On the one path lies openness and prosperity – on the other, isolation and decline. Let us hope we have the wisdom to choose the former.

The full piece is available online on City AM’s website.