UK Parliamentarian says country will enter into intense global competition post Brexit

Leading Indian-origin British entreprenuer and parliamentarian Lord Swraj Paul has said the UK will enter into a period of intense international competition post Brexit. The UK is due to leave the European Union (EU) on March 29, although Parliament has yet to agree the terms of withdrawal.

"Brexit is also coming, and in whatever form, Britain will enter a period of intense international competition. Our cultural interactions at home will be the yardstick for our success abroad," Lord Paul said after receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Midlands Business Awards 2019 on Friday at Leicester, about 100 km from here. Lord Paul, Chairman of the Caparo Group of industries and one of the richest Indian-origin industrialist in the UK, has been awarded for his lifetime contribution in the Midlands region, which is home to a large Indian diaspora.

The 88-year-old member of the House of Lords is also the Chancellor of the University of Wolverhampton, one of the leading institutions of higher education in the region. Recalling the entrepreneurial spirit of the Indian community in the region, Lord Paul said, " I first began business in the Midlands nearly 50 years ago. It was then a very different place but there was a feature that he found particularly encouraging -- it was a region of opportunity."

"In the decades since then, there have been good times and difficult times. But that attribute remained an essential part of our commercial and social DNA and it is what sustains our economic environment and we must nourish it," he added.

(With inputs from agencies.)