One insider’s view of the thorny subject of immigration

Probably this happens to every generation: the moment when you can’t believe what’s going on; when events seem too preposterous to be true. I never thought I’d witness government and parliament in this country tearing themselves to tatters and becoming so irrelevant that Westminster might as well be located on the dark side of Jupiter.

Perhaps the most incendiary topic lumbering about in the disintegration of our governance is immigration. No other subject manages to beget such nonsense and fury. The claims of anti-migrant, anti-immigrant sentiment are rife, despite the fact that even on the far right it is almost impossible to find anyone who is completely against the notion of immigration; it’s all about how it should be conducted.

Suketu Mehta, an American of Gujarati origin, who wrote a highly acclaimed portrait of Bombay, Maximum City, has now come up with This Land is Our Land: An Immigrant’s Manifesto, a consideration of the state of play.