Everyone gets a chance

Migrants arriving at Ellis Island off New York City.

Most of us are familiar with the “American Dream” of the 19th and early 20th Century, when waves of immigrants left Europe for the US in the hope of creating a better life for themselves. I’ve been to Ellis Island and seen the scale and hope of those people. Years later further waves of migration followed when those fleeing war in Europe made the trip across the Atlantic to find safety and a future for their families.

We too are a migrant nation. From the times of the earliest known settlements, groups of people have come here from the mainland of Europe, tribe after tribe, right up to the Norman invasion. Since then waves of migration, whether drawn by the Industrial Revolution or the needs of our post-war economy, have helped keep our economy moving forward. In an increasingly globalised world…