Distinguished friends
Sukhpal Singh Ahluwalia
Riz Ahmed
Sughra Ahmed
Keith Ajegbo
George Alagiah
Claire Alexander
Peter Atkins
Julian Baggini
Richard Beswick
Dinesh Bhugra
Karan Bilimoria
Geoffrey Bindman
Karen Blackett
Nicholas Blake
Ian Blatchford
David Blunkett
Achim Borchardt-Hume
Mihir Bose
Alain de Botton
John Bowers
Des Browne
Rickie Burman
Paul Canoville
Saimo Chahal
Reeta Chakrabarti
Shami Chakrabarti
Stephen Claypole
Robin Cohen
Linda Colley
David Crystal
Angélica Dass
Prakash Daswani
Navnit Dholakia
Ibrahim Dogus
Lloyd Dorfman
Alf Dubs
John Dyson
Damien Egan
Shreela Flather
Daniel Franklin
Edie Friedman
Manjit Singh Gill
Teresa Graham
Susie Harries
Naomie Harris
James Hathaway
David Hencke
Sophie Herxheimer
Afua Hirsch
Michael Howard
Clive Jacobs
Kevin Jennings
Adrian Johns
Shobu Kapoor
Jackie Kay
Ayub Khan-Din
Francesca Klug
Tony Kushner
Kwasi Kwarteng
Kwame Kwei-Armah
David Kynaston
Brian Lambkin
Mark Lewisohn
Joanna Lumley
Michael Mansfield
Sue McAlpine
Neil Mendoza
David Miles
Abigail Morris
Hugh Muir
Tessa Murdoch
Sandy Nairne
Bushra Nasir
Susheila Nasta
Eithne Nightingale
John O’Farrell
Kenneth Olisa
Kunle Olulode
David Olusoga
Julia Onslow-Cole
John Orna-Ornstein
Herman Ouseley
Ruth Padel
Panikos Panayi
Bhikhu Parekh
Nikesh Patel
David Pearl
Caryl Phillips
Mike Phillips
Trevor Phillips
Sunand Prasad
Aubrey Rose
Michael Rosen
Cathy Ross
Salman Rushdie
Jill Rutter
Philippe Sands
Konrad Schiemann
Richard Scott
Stephen Sedley
Maggie Semple
Saira Shah
Babita Sharma
Nikesh Shukla
Jon Snow
Robert Soning
David Spence
Danny Sriskandarajah
Stelio Stefanou
Dick Taverne
Robert Tombs
Rumi Verjee
Patrick Vernon
Edmund de Waal
Iqbal Wahhab
Yasmin Waljee
Jake Wallis Simons
David Warren
Iain Watson
Henning Wehn
Janet Whitaker
Gary Younge
Benjamin Zephaniah
My book “The Battle of Britishness: Migrant Journeys, 1685 to the Present” opens with the thoughts from black British film-maker John Akomfrah: ‘People don’t make the journeys to come and die; they make them to come and live. And to live, you transform the place.’ I’d add that we need as a nation to embrace the vitality brought by migrants and the process of migration. Britain would be a sterile place without the contribution of newcomers.
Tony Kushner
Tony Kushner is Professor of History and Director of the Parkes Institute for the study of Jewish/non-Jewish relations, University of Southampton. He has written extensively on refugee history in Britain and also the memory of refugees in that country. His most recent book is The Battle of Britishness: Migrant Journeys, 1685 to the Present (Manchester University Press, 2012).