The chief executive of IBM UK and Ireland has hailed the opportunities for innovation opened up by Brexit, praising a new openness to change from regulators.
While Remainers now act as though it is a matter of fact that Brexit has been responsible for the economic damage which has coincided with the Wuhan virus pandemic and energy crisis, and Brexiteers exhausted by the long struggle to finally break with the bloc — at least partially — seldom take the time to challenge them, there are now signs that freedom from the dead hand of Brussels regulation may be bearing fruit.
Indeed, Sreeram Visvanathan, who leads the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), a now-venerable mainstay of the tech sector, in the United Kingdom and Ireland, believes it has paved the way for an innovation boom.
“I’ve seen the regulators be very open… I’ve seen us move away from that hard stance of ‘this is the mandate and thou shalt obey the mandate’. There’s a willingness to listen and to adapt,” he said in comments to The Telegraph, which itself noted initiatives such as the Information Commissioner’s Office launching a “regulatory sandbox” for start-ups to experiment in ways that might otherwise have violated EU era laws such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Britain’s “ability to do a lot more, post-Brexit” would, Visvanathan suggested, foster the “willingness to take risk and challenge the status quo” required to achieve leadership in sectors such as tech.
He also denied that London had been made unattractive to business by chaotic episodes such as the historically short premiership of Liz Truss, noting that most big cities have their own issues going on.
“You know what? If London is facing a crisis, so is every other big city. And we’re all challenged by needing more technical skills than we have,” he said.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.