Britain and Indian immigration

My father's family in England was barely middle class, and Dad benefited greatly from a free education at a top UK university. Then, because he liked America better, he left the UK. All that expense to educate him, and he left! It was Britain's loss and America's gain, part of a larger "brain drain" that went on at the time. Allowing highly educated immigrants a path to citizenship is a good thing for the country they are immigrating to.

So if a talented young Indian engineer grows up in an environment of heavy tutoring and rigorous academic standards at his school, and if he moves to Britain, then surely it's the UK's gain, and India's loss? And not the other way around? (Based on my sister's and my experiences in university with classmates from India, they really are very well-educated when they get to the West, having met an academic standard at the secondary level that far surpasses our own.)

That makes this section of The Economist a little difficult to follow:



Will she welcome engineers at least?