Time to explode the great immigration myths

Evening Standard

The great myth about immigration is that there has never been any proper debate on the issue.

Not true. In the 40 years since I first arrived from India, immigration, like taxes and the royal family, has formed a constant backdrop of national discourse.

I came months after Enoch Powell's "rivers of blood" speech. Then, immigration was a codeword for coloured immigration. But, as yesterday's figures from the Office of National Statistics show, the group showing the largest population increase between 2001 and 2009 were 533,000 "other whites": east Europeans and people from South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. This should help us stop seeing the issue as a purely ethnic one.