You’ll hear a lot of nonsense these days about “British jobs for British people”, as though talent stops at Dover and genius requires a passport. I’m here to tell you—rhetorically, floridly, perhaps even provocatively—that if we carry on down that road, the only thing we’ll be exporting is our future.
Because here’s the cold, unapologetic truth: some of the best companies in Britain right now weren’t started by blokes from Bromley or lasses from Loughborough. They were built—boldly, brilliantly—by immigrants. Entrepreneurs who came here with no old-school tie, no Oxford college affiliation, no seat at the Garrick. Just vision, stamina, and a burning need to build something better.
Take Revolut, the digital bank that made high-street banking look like dial-up internet. Started by Nikolay Storonsky (pictured), born in Russia and schooled in physics and hustle, Revolut tore through the crusty layers of traditional finance like a chainsaw through suet. Or Monzo—built with help from a multicultural team whose mission wasn’t British tradition, but global innovation.
Then there’s ElevenLabs, the AI voice tech company that’s gone from zero to warp speed in less time than it takes HMRC to answer a phone call. Co-founded by Piotr Dąbkowski, who’s Polish, and Mati Staniszewski, who is—whisper it—also not from Guildford. They’re building the future of media from a country still arguing about Radio 4.
And Synthesia. God bless it. A startup so cool, even the Americans are jealous. An AI video platform used by companies all over the world—led by a team of immigrant founders whose collective ambition makes the Houses of Parliament look like a village fête. They didn’t come here for the weather or the late trains. They came here to build something. And thank God they did.
Now, imagine for a moment if we’d told them all to bugger off at passport control. “Sorry mate, can’t let you in. We’ve got a lad in Swindon with a Raspberry Pi and a dream.” Ludicrous, right? But that’s the direction we’re drifting in. A little more visa red tape here, a little more rhetoric about “taking back control” there—and suddenly, the UK becomes a nation of heritage rather than a hub of invention.
I’m not saying British-born entrepreneurs don’t deserve praise. They do— many of them are sensational. But if we want to build a truly great entrepreneurial economy, it’s not about geography. It’s about gravity. The UK must become a gravitational centre for the best minds in the world. The brightest thinkers. The hungriest founders. The wildest dreamers. Not just the ones born within the sound of Bow Bells.
We don’t win by narrowing the gate. We win by making the UK the best bloody place on Earth to start a company. That means generous and intelligent visa schemes. That means startup tax incentives with real teeth. That means investment channels that don’t require your uncle to be in the House of Lords. And it means—crucially—a culture that doesn’t sneer at ambition or treat innovation like an awkward dinner guest.
If you ask me, the Home Office ought to be handing out platinum-tier welcome packs at Heathrow. “Welcome to Britain, here’s your Innovator Visa, a coffee, and directions to the nearest co-working space.” Let’s treat entrepreneurs the way we treat Premier League footballers: as indispensable imports that raise the whole game.
Instead, we get Nigel-from-Twitter banging on about “taking our country back”, while the most talented people on the planet quietly buy one-way tickets to Berlin, Austin, or Dubai.
Do you know what makes Silicon Valley what it is? Not just code and venture capital. It’s the constant influx of people who don’t give a monkey’s about status quo. People with accents, ambition, and absolutely no sense of when to quit. Sound familiar? It should. That’s the same spirit that built the UK’s best startups.
And yet, for all our history of trade and talent, empire and enterprise, we now seem more interested in walling ourselves off than inviting brilliance in. It’s short-sighted, self-defeating, and stupid. Like unplugging your router because the internet’s “a bit foreign”.
The truth is, we’re in a global arms race for innovation. AI, biotech, climate tech—it’s all moving at warp speed. If we want to be in the room where it happens, we need to open the door.
And no, this isn’t about immigration versus opportunity. It’s about immigration as opportunity. About recognising that talent is our last competitive advantage in a world where supply chains are broken, politics is polarised, and interest rates are doing the Hokey Cokey.
So let’s be bold. Let’s be a magnet for ambition. Let’s stop pretending that greatness wears a particular passport and start building a Britain that says to every global innovator: “Yes. Here. Now.”
Because if we don’t, the Revoluts and ElevenLabs of the future won’t be British. They’ll be Belgian. Or Balinese. Or based in Boston.
And we’ll be left here, proud and poor, wondering why all our best ideas now come with a return address in Zurich.
Read more:
We must make Britain the best place to build companies for the world’s best talent