Updated the Britain Attracts Foreign Investors and Entrepreneurs in April 2014 with up to date infographic like images.
Read a very interesting news article today on Reuters news about Britain lures talent: sci-tech entrepreneurs move in.
In the UK we’ve had years of very negative attitudes regarding immigration, with a lot of the working class believing inward immigration is damaging the British economy.
Every day the right-wing newspapers are filled with anti-immigration stories from foreign prisoners the UK can’t get rid of to immigrants ONLY moving to Britain to claim welfare benefits.
Lots of Brits believe “immigrants are taking their jobs” for example!
There’s a LOT of negativity towards foreigners in the UK and I’m sure it will have an impact on direct foreign investment.
Britain Attracts Foreign Investors
LONDON (Reuters) – It took only a few weeks of research for Romanian entrepreneur Emi Gal to decide where to base his digital media firm, and his choice confounds a fairly enduring set of stereotypes about Britain’s global appeal.
As my regular readers know I own a number of websites including one on UK politics where supporters of a fringe right-wing political party, The British National Party (BNP) are consistently arguing ALL immigration is bad for Britain: they want to close our borders and pay legal immigrants to leave!
I know the hard core BNP supporters (and the BNP politicians for that matter) are extremists, the BNP have neo-Nazi/fascist/racist roots and are NOT representative of Britain, they hold a minority view, but the issues the BNP focus on are real.
British people are concerned at the level of economic immigration into Britain, especially when economic migrants that enter Britain lack skills: I think the majority of British people see the value of economic migrants that brings skills to our economy that we are lacking (we have a shortage of UK trained Doctors and Nurses for example), but do not understand why we need foreign workers for untrained jobs like picking cabbages in a field when hundreds of thousands of British people are unemployed.
We Need Foreign Investors
Many British people over look how reliant we are on foreign investment, the world is a heck of a lot smaller than it used to be with international businesses owning many British businesses (looks like Kraft will be buying Cadbury for example) with money flowing freely around the globe. IMO this is a very good thing for our economy, who cares where the money is from as long as it’s invested in our economy.
While we come out of recession we need more foreign direct investment and entrepreneurs not less.
Just look at where the high net worth individuals live in the world, we want them to invest in our economy.
We should be trying to attract high net worth billionaires and millionaires not chase them away because the UK general public don’t understand the economics of immigration.
When I read the “Britain lures talent” article it was a bit of a pleasant surprise to read such a positive article about economic immigration and foreign investment into Britain after all the negativity from BNP supporters on my politics site.
I realise the article doesn’t mention immigration per se, but the Romanian entrepreneur mentioned in the article is an economic migrant and good for Britain. His digital media firm will bring investment into Britain and create jobs for British people (all good for our economy).
Great News for Britain’s Economy
International experts agree there has been genuine progress in the country which a few decades ago was fast fading as a magnet for the science, health and technology brains and entrepreneurship that also drive the knowledge economy.
And
According to the Legatum Institute, an investment-led think tank which ranks 104 nations on a Prosperity Index of a variety of business and social measures, Britain is second only to the United States for entrepreneurship and innovation — ahead of Canada, Sweden and the Netherlands.
Ranked second out of 104 countries regarding entrepreneurship and innovation, I thought we were doing quite badly, just goes to show how the British media tend to concentrate on the negatives.
The report referred to is at http://www.prosperity.com/#!/?aspxerrorpath=%2Frankings.aspx Britain is ranked number 12 out of the 104 countries overall, which is pretty good IMO.
After reading the article and the ranking report I feel more positive about Britain’s future economic prospects and can only hope the negative image groups like the BNP send to potential foreign investors and skilled economic migrants wanting to invest/settle in Britain doesn’t cause too much damage.
I always like to see good news, there’s never enough of it on the news.
David Law
Website - SEO Gold
Foreign Investment and Skilled Migration Drives Economic Growth
The biggest problem with British people TODAY is – they still think that Britain has an Empire and no immigrants are needed. They live in their “glorified” past even now but forget the fact (or are rather unaware) that throughout history only 5% of the upper classes in Britain controlled the Empire and the rest of 95% British people – all of whom were SUBJECTS of the empire along with the common people in their colonies.
I also need to state that – the ONLY reason that Britain was able to gain control of India is because they made economic alliances with the Local Maharajas of India who were given full support and protection by the British in return for carrying out trade activities and controlling those parts of India which did not have any direct Indian Royal family ruling it. Its a pure misconception when the majority of British people think they controlled massive countries like India single-handedly and now the British think all Indians were poor and their slaves at one time – so nothing should change even now. Little do they realize that 95% of the British population up until 60 years ago were also slaves to the British empire.. only the 5% upper class ruled the country as late as until the 1970s.
Anyway – a lot of the racist attitudes and BNP’s popularity has to do with the fact that British public are under the misconception that they ruled the world at one time – so now they cannot stand foreigners coming and living side-by-side with them. Generally the upper class and well-bred British know the difference and are well aware of all that I say above – and they are not at all racist either – rather they hate the same lower class racist Brits who keep making such a big deal out of Immigration without realizing how important foreign investment and skilled migration is. They fear foreigners coming over and not only taking up their jobs but also businesses and then employing British people….this is why the majority of them are not in favour of any kind of immigration – skilled or business / investors included – in fact they hate foreigners especially Indians with money the most. This attitude can be changed if they were properly educated about the British empire – sadly the education they receive is biased and feeds in more nationalistic / racist tendencies amongst the common British people. Poor people also have nothing to be proud of except the achievements of their country (past and present) and that is why they are more anti-immigrant and have more racist / nationalistic tendencies. Do you really think that wealthy Brits are against foreign investors coming to UK?? LOL… they all want us to be there.. and make them wealthier.
I seriously get very bad treatment by UK Border staff at the airports – and I have lodged several complaints regarding the same – they are jealous of me and one time this officer asked me – “How much money do u have for this trip” – I told him… how much do u need to see in order to be convinced?? Then I said – lets just put it this way… the clothes I’m wearing right now are probably twice the amount of what you earn in an entire year… need I say more??? Believe me – I am not a nasty person but these people are racist and jealous to the core – they see a rich visitor coming in and can’t wait to humiliate us and then let us in. I’ve learnt how to give back the insults to them too – they cannot do anything about it. Do they really need to ask me how much money I have – when I just got off the first class of a very expensive airline and have been to the UK a 100 times before which they can clearly see on their screens??? Any wealthy even “potential” investor will get turned off by this behaviour and never return and seriously never even consider investing in such a country when they are treated so badly despite being regular visitors to UK. I seriously dread coming back to the UK now – I have no desire to be insulted by some low class low life visa officer at the very least UK’s govt. should ensure visitors are treated with a smile – and not as “criminal suspects” the minute they enter the UK… its disgraceful and totally disgusting.
Foreign Investment and Skilled Migration Drives Economic Growth
UK Government Open Door Immigration Policy
Why does the UK government allow so many immigrants here and let them stay here on marriage visas. They are quick to dish out Indefinite Leave to Remain to fraudulent scum who should live n die in their rotten homelands.
They come here marrying unfortunate British girls, only to abandon them even the kids they have with them, soon after they get Indefinite Leave. Then the girl- the victim of this evil trend is forced to rely on benefits.
So why are these scum allowed to remain? They come to the UK, have kids to guarantee their stay, up and leave and pass their responsibilities onto the government. Then worst of all they are eligible to apply for British Citizenship in their own right after 5 years.
Only people who have something of worth to offer the country should be allowed access to the UK, such as these business people. However, if the government were more stringent when dealing with marriage visas and employed a longer term of limited leave then they would end up shifting thousands of these devils back to the squalor they came from.
UK Government Open Door Immigration Policy
Direct Foreign Investors not Welcome in the UK
Raheela –
Scum eats Scum – the British govt. is no less SCUM – they always have been and always will be so the only people that can live in Britain now easily and eat up their benefits are other SCUM.
Imagine if one invests £500,000 building a business, paying taxes and going by the rules – those people are harassed and mistreated to no end by UK visa authorities but the asylum seekers and sham marriages or students who lie and get into the UK succeed easy because they have no money so they lose no money. And the reason they succeed is because like themselves – the British govt. is also SCUM.. filthy scum…. they deserve each other and i’ve decided to take my money elsewhere.
I hope every wealthy person is discouraged from going to the UK and they will collapse like this. British are filthy people who pretend to be nice and tolerant – but they are evil.
Direct Foreign Investors not Welcome in the UK
Indian Millionaires not Welcome in Britain
Hi i am totally agreed to the foreign Millionaire.
UK nw has turned to be a land of asylum seeker. recently one of my friend who run away from a poor country got the British passport.
in private all his friends knows that he cheated UK government. even his wife have an indefinite leave to remain in UK. this all tells the story of UK where the people who dnt have any money and British government happy with this people. actually British government is confuse about what to do and what to not.
when i saw Muslim people having words in their mouth that Britain will be an Islamic country soon i believe it will happen. so far so i am concerned about the way British people and government not understanding about the future and well from my experience i find out that the most scared and having no confidence are the people from Uk.
recently i came across 3 guys from uk having holiday in India. they were coming from agra “Tajmahal” city. and i was shocked that for two months holiday they have a budget of only 1400 pounds.
Even that much money i spend in 15 days on the things like parties, traveling. so i know now that we are more better placed than them and we now need to show them the same attitude as what this British people show us on their soil.
i came across with the same situation about airport and money things and i simply reply them that even the money purse i am carrying with me is more expensive than your car.
haha. so happy being an indian and proud to be an indian.
Indian Millionaires not Welcome in Britain
UK Institutional Racism Impact on Foreign Investment
UK is a highly racist country – as a foreigner try living outside the posh, wealthy areas of central London – it’s impossible to escape racist attacks. There were 50,000 documented racist attacks in UK just this past year out of which more than 50% were targeted towards Indians / South Asians.
Read this for proof – http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/hate-crime-figures-paint-a-grim-portrait-of-life-in-britain-2148025.html
This is higher than ANY other country in the western world.
Moreover – UK is an Institutionally Racist Island – look at the way they treat foreigners upon arrival at UK borders – they treat us like dogs like we need to beg them to enter despite holding valid visas and there have been SOOOOO many cases where some idiot UK immigration officer had a mere silly suspicion and sent the person upon arrival to a detention center (PRISON) – where they were kept for days and days with other prisoners until someone realised the mistake and let them go. There have been not 1 or 2 such incidences but 100s or even 1000s – today Britain has become an intolerant racist hell hole. Only desperate poor people who seek asylum go to that country so they can churn and cheat the system. Wealthy entrepreneurs and investors are treated like shit in the UK – so why should we bother going there and being so disrespected again and again??
Also there is such a huge police state mentality in UK – there is zero quality of life, racism galore, crime – highest in western Europe, so why in their right mind would any wealthy foreigner want to live in UK?? Sorry now wealthy people are seeking to go more to welcoming countries who dont obsess about policing their citizens and making life hell for immigrants with money.
I am a millionaire and have been treated worse than an asylum seeker by UK immigration officers – and I will take high level diplomatic action against them now after what they have done to me the past 3 years – the amount of racism I have faced, the amount of nonsense I have had to deal with and the amount of money along with sleepless nights I have spent in your filthy country – stop with these misleading articles that UK is a welcoming country for people with money – you are a disgusting country for rich people… yes for the desperate and poor it may be another story but I refuse to set foot in that country ever again…. and if many others think and feel the same way – which I think they do – its only a matter of time before UK’s economy collapses completely as in the past they were only surviving due to foreign investment….nothing else.
UK Institutional Racism Impact on Foreign Investment