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By Peter Skyte

“Britain is an island of strangers”; “The UK has been colonised by immigrants”

Such phrases have echoed loudly in recent months, feeding a familiar narrative of fear and resentment. Immigrants, once again, become the target of finger-pointers and waggers.

Yet for some of us, this debate is not abstract. It is personal.

My family were refugees from Nazi Germany. My parents fled a country convulsed by hatred and found sanctuary in Britain. Other family members went to the United States. Without that sanctuary, without the willingness of strangers to open their doors, none of us would be here. The branches of our family tree — now scattered across continents – grow from soil that was not originally ours. We are, quite literally, the leaves of refuge.

Immigration sits high on the political agenda not only in Britain but across what we habitually call “the West” – a curious label, given that much of Europe lies east of the Greenwich meridian. Geography aside, the phrase signals something cultural: an idea of shared identity under perceived strain. In times of uncertainty, it is always tempting to draw the circle tighter.

But history rarely offers anything truly new. Again and again, those who look different, sound different, or act differently have been cast as “the other.” In moments of economic hardship or social anxiety, minorities become convenient scapegoats. The pattern is ancient but familiar: suspicion hardens into hostility; rhetoric sharpens into blame. Politicians and would-be rabble rousers, sometimes ambitious and sometimes unscrupulous – occasionally both – find in immigration a ready instrument with which to rally support.

And yet Britain itself is a tapestry woven from successive waves of newcomers. The story did not begin in 1948 with the arrival of the ship Empire Windrush, carrying Caribbean migrants who would later be known as the Windrush Generation. Nor did it begin with Jewish refugees escaping pogroms in the 1880s, or those fleeing Nazism in the 1930s, like my parents. The Irish in the nineteenth century transformed cities such as Liverpool and Glasgow. Earlier still came the Huguenots, bringing silk-weaving skills to Spitalfields; the Normans, reshaping the language and governance of England after 1066; the Angles, whose very name echoes in the word “England”, Saxons and Jutes; the Vikings; the Romans.

Each wave had its own reaction, sometimes welcomed, often not. Each was, in its time, regarded by some as alien or unsettling. And yet each, over time, settled, contributed, often intermarried and became woven into the fabric of national life. The food we eat, the words we speak, the institutions we rely upon – all bear the imprint of migration. In Britain, indigeneity is often merely a question of how far back one chooses to look.

My parents, Thea and Heinz Skyte, when  my dad received an MBE in 1985.

The modern economy tells a similar story. Foreign-born workers now constitute more than a fifth of the UK’s employed population. Their labour spans the spectrum: from seasonal agricultural work to hospitality; from transport to information technology; from cleaning offices to staffing care homes. Nowhere is their presence more visible than in the National Health Service. In 2022, nearly a third of doctors practising in the UK had been trained overseas. The health of the nation, quite literally, rests in immigrant hands. Even our cultural and sporting life, from world-class scientists to Premier League footballers, draws strength from global talent.

There is also a less discussed dimension: demography. Across Europe, birth rates have fallen below replacement levels and the proportion of people of working-age is shrinking. In the absence of immigration, Britain’s population is projected to shrink dramatically by 30% or 20 million people by the end of the century. In Germany, the forecast decline is even more severe, while Italy and Spain are predicted to lose half of their current populations on current trends.

Such shifts carry profound economic consequences. As the proportion of older citizens rises and the working-age population contracts, tax revenues fall while demands on pensions and healthcare increase. Immigration is not a panacea, nor should it be romanticised. It must be managed responsibly and humanely. But immigrants, typically younger than the host population, help to stabilise these potential demographic ticking time bombs. Any serious discussion of immigration must weigh these structural realities alongside cultural concerns.

For those of us whose lives are the product of refuge offered, the debate has an added resonance. My parents worked, paid taxes, raised children, and contributed in ways modest and unremarkable, as most immigrants do. They were not a “wave” or a “problem” but individuals seeking safety and dignity. Their story is replicated in countless variations across generations.

When members of my wider family arrived in New York, they would almost certainly have passed through Ellis Island, under the watchful gaze of the Statue of Liberty. They may not have read the lines of Emma Lazarus’s poem engraved there, but they would have understood all too easily its call to act.

“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Our contemporary debate is itself tempest-tossed. It is right that immigration be discussed soberly and thoughtfully. It is right that governments balance compassion with practicality. But it is also necessary to remember the longer arc of history – that today’s newcomer is often tomorrow’s neighbour, colleague, or citizen; that yesterday’s outsider becomes today’s insider.

The question is not whether immigration will shape our future, it already does, as it always has, but whether we will approach that reality with fear or with confidence.

From time to time, amid the noise and heat of political rhetoric, we might pause to remember to also lift the lamp beside our golden door.