Amid Anti-Migrants Protests, UK Report Says Indians Are Britain's Backbone

As anti-immigration protests continue to flare around asylum accommodation sites and Britain's political class promises "control" and lower numbers, a new white paper launched in London is pushing back against the most potent claim in today's xenophobia debate: that migration weakens the country. Instead, it argues, one community in particular has repeatedly helped Britain hold together - and move forward. 

The report, released by Manish Tiwari of Here & Now 365 in collaboration with the Aston India Centre at Aston University, traces four waves of Indian migration since Indian independence and positions them as a through-line in modern Britain's recovery, enterprise and global competitiveness. 

Its arrival is politically charged. The UK government's own immigration agenda is framed around reducing net migration, tightening routes, and linking visas more directly to domestic training and skills policy.  In recent months, flashpoints have spread beyond Westminster: Reuters has documented repeated tensions around hotels housing asylum seekers - including in Epping, Essex, where protests and counter-protests became a national symbol of the "migrant hotel" row. 

Against that backdrop, the white paper's central message is blunt: Indian migration has historically filled gaps Britain could not fill itself - and now powers sectors the country cannot afford to stall. The study describes how the first post-war wave of Indian migrants arrived during acute labour shortages, working across manufacturing, transport and public services, and helping lay foundations for what became the NHS. 

The second wave, it says, followed the early-1970s expulsion of Asians from East Africa under Idi Amin, bringing families - many of Indian origin - who "went on to build businesses, revive local economies, and entrench a culture of enterprise" across British towns.

Then came a structural shift: as Britain moved toward a knowledge economy, Indian migration increasingly meant doctors, engineers, financiers and educators - professionals who, the report argues, strengthened national competitiveness in a globalised era. 

But it is the fourth wave - post-Brexit and post-Covid - that speaks most directly to today's political moment. The white paper says Indian professionals have become strategically important to Britain's ability to plug "critical skills shortages."

One statistic in the report is already cutting through: it estimates Indian-born professionals account for around 15% of the UK's technology workforce, a striking claim in a country that sells itself as a science-and-tech power.  The repor mmunity is among the UK's most economically successful migrant groups, pointing to high employment, education and entrepreneurship. 

In comments included in the release, Tiwari frames the diaspora's contribution - "from rebuilding Britain after the war" to "powering its digital revolution" and strengthening health and care systems "in times of crisis."  Aston University's institutional view is similarly sweeping, describing the Indian diaspora as "woven into the UK's growth story," supporting public services while powering innovation and shaping future competitiveness through skills and enterprise. 

The white paper was launched at the House of Lords, underscoring that this is not simply a community narrative but a political intervention in a polarised climate.  The event drew figures spanning policy, business, culture and academia, with engagement through multiple forewords and participants. 

That intervention comes as the UK wrestles with competing pressures: public frust ained services, political pledges to curb migration, and a street-level atmosphere where migrants - and sometimes anyone who "looks foreign" - become a convenient target of struggle. Even prominent British Asians have recently warned of the risks of normalising racially charged rhetoric in mainstream debate. 

In practice, the report argues, collapsing all migration into a single political grievance obscures a hard economic fact: Britain's key systems - hospitals, care homes, IT backbones, start-ups and high streets - are already interlaced with Indian labour and Indian enterprise. The question, it implies, is not whether the UK can "do without" such migration, but what the real cost would be - to growth, productivity and service delivery - if policy and politics treat contributors as targets.

As protests persist and government pledges harden, the white paper's wager is that evidence and lived outcomes can still cut through the noise: in a Europe anxious about borders, the Indian story in Britain is offered as proof that migration can be investment - and that integration can be a competitive advantage, not a cultural threat.