I was born in the 1980s, when MPs in parliament could be found arguing that we – non-white Commonwealth citizens – should be sent back to where we came from. Now that where we came from had legally ceased to be part of Britain, our very existence here was seen as the problem. So, after our grandmothers had helped build the National Health Service and our grandfathers had staffed the public transport system, British MPs could openly talk about repatriation – we were no longer needed, excess labour, surplus to requirements, of no further use to capital.
