Walking through the intimidating corridors and feeling very humbled whilst I take my seat in a House of Commons debating room to listen to a discussion on immigrant nations.

What does Malmo, Birmingham and Marseille have common? They all have experiences in those larger urban areas of becoming largely immigrant societies. Why does immigration have an impact within our society and what can be done about it?

Immigration is an ongoing process of globalisation that escapes political regulation but most have been touched by national political decisions. We have become something that nobody thought could happen, being free to openly discuss migration when in the past it would be seen as illiberal.

Britain has been turning into a new reality since the 50s and there is a conflicting interest as to who has produced our immigrant societies. John Le Pen was advocating that Algerian Muslims should be entitled to become full French citizens in the 1950s and most Western European nations have become immigrant nations as a result of similar policies.

There is uncertainty between the political elites and ordinary people who do not want to become a multi cultural society. Migration is a human reality but immigration doesn’t enrich us all rather a shared sense of loss, a world that was known being loss. Losing children to the society of the host nation and gap between parents and children widen. There is a sense of loss on both sides of the equation.

There are various stages of dealing with the loss; avoidance, conflict or accommodation. Cities in the UK have the highest amount of social segregation in Western Europe. Conflict is a sign of immigration rather than a failure. Community of communities is a conservative way of looking at things. Ethnicity is all defining, even today and multiculturalism doesn’t work when there is conflict arising.

Shared ideas of citizenship should be beyond the rule of law; migrants should see themselves as citizens with reciprocity. Our language skills gaps need to be address from both ends of the scale, it is right for immigrants to speak English but a real shame that most people born in England can only speak English. The welfare state has produced obstacles to social mobility as most migrants are very entrepreneurial yet have become reliant on the welfare state in most European countries. The ideal questions need to be asked last, what do we need to have in common?

The avoidance of each other’s communities needs to be understood both in cultural and economic dimensions. The places that high skilled immigrants find themselves in tend to keep their positions out of the hostility of the host nations. The cost of immigration is not spread out evenly, how we compensate those who are being squeezed by immigration needs to be addressed.

Multicultural and immigration debates

The separation between political, academic and public opinion is critical as politicians and academics try to tidy up the issues without engaging the public. Most of the public do not feel like they have had an opportunity to shape the immigration debate. There seems to be a lack of demographic and democratic courage to engage with the public. One trick being used is to turn immigration questions into criminal questions to take these themes out of the democratic debate. We need more discussion around these themes.

It is not necessarily a bad thing if people want to conserve their culture as most of us are not captive in one cultural boundary. The only time I’m reminded about my ethnicity is when faced with racism rather than multiculturalism. If the centre left wants to speak for those who are bigots, who deals with the misinformation and the lies?

Should a country belong to its inhabitants?

The story of what we do to them is not the full account; rather we should be telling the story of how people come together from a migrant perspective. Where is the evidence in some of the discussions around patterns of migration? The ways in which we live and the context needs to be highlighted as we are pulled in various directions at the same time.

Migration debates manage to cross between left and right of the traditional political sphere. We should aim to find words that open the debate rather than terms that shut down the debate like racism. Those words should be as close to the lived realities to understand the social dynamics being faced in most societies.

Is it time to rethink national histories?

In a living democracy, what does ‘we’ mean? As ‘we’ can’t get away from the ‘we’ factor. Intercultural rather than multicultural, with the focus moving away from how we live together to how we understand each other. Immigration is a proxy for a wider discussion on a new political economy as politicians continue to not engage with the public on any of the most important issues.

The middle and upper classes benefit the most from immigration. We will only know what happens when we go out and engage with society, in real life by finding common ground, starting there then building up with the solutions coming from the public. The ultimate aim is to have strong national identities that are inclusive.