How do we debate immigration?

Home Secretary, Allan Johnson, seen by some as a future Labour Leader, is quoted in today's Independent as saying that a "rational" discussion about immigration would have starved the far right BNP of its recent electoral successes. He says:

"People think we have shied away from a debate on it. They may well be right," he said. "My post bag is bigger on immigration than any other issue. It is a major public concern. The public deserves a rational debate on this, rather than what they sometimes get, which is at the extreme end of the scale."

His call for a "real debate" about immigration marks a big shift in Labour's thinking. A week ago, Mr Johnson admitted that successive governments, including the present one, had been "maladroit" in handling the issue.

In the past the main political parties have attempted to win the debate about immigration by simply not having one. This has allowed the far right parties to seriously distort the position and make wild claims about the number of immigrants in the country at any one time and exaggerate the detrimental impact.

It now seems that the debate is going mainstream, but there must be some concern as to where it will lead. I worship in a church which welcomes people of all nationalities. It is part of the reason why many were drawn to the church in the first place. It wasn't white people welcoming black people, we have a long history of Black people being part of the Church. We've had three Black Ministers including Ermal Kirby who is now the Chair of the London District of the Methodist Church.

What troubles me is what it means to debate immigration with the far right. They don't simply mean a debate about who gets off the next plane at Birmingham Airport from Islamabad. They want a debate about the right of people of colour to stay in the UK, whenever they, their parents, or grandparents arrived and settled in the UK. Once they have "sorted" that issue they will move onto to other groups such as the Jews.

It is worth looking at local Conservative election material from the 1920s - it can be accessed in Birmingham public library - where many leaflets bore the headline "Britain for the British" and there were panicky descriptions of how English people were being swamped by immigrants. Where did these immigrants come from? Ireland plus a smattering of European Jews! In fact by the 1960s a Lord Mayor of Birmingham boasted that he was the civic head of the biggest Irish community in the world.

One of the reasons why groups like the BNP find it a little harder to make headway among the whites in Birmingham is that many are descended from Irish families and the old landladies' advert "No dogs, no Irish" still rings in the collective memory bank.

My experience as a child was to live in a community with a substantial Jewish minority. In my primary schools Jews were a small minority though we did have some Black children and my best friend was mixed race Indian - my mother having been born in India to an Army family made us feel we had something in common.

My secondary school was about 50-50 Jews. In our first year we had the first Black boy arrive, his name was Winston. Our community was constantly changing and by the time I left both the number of Black children was about 25% in the earlier years.

There were differences but, by and large, these were sorted. The Jewish lads, for example, took off Jewish holidays and left early on a Friday to get home before sunset. Our school assembles and the hymns were adjusted to refer to God the Father rather than mentioning God the Son. However Jewish musicians were enthusiastic and I assume voluntary participants in our annual carol service. This was all long before the right wing press headlined the phrase "This is political correctness gone mad".

What the far right want to do is to unravel all that movement and all that immigration going back to the 1950s or even the 1930s. When they speak of "immigration" they mean Black or Asian people. They don't mean the Australians and New Zealanders who arrive in this country in large numbers, settle in West London, and then price many middle income people out of contract work, including as it happens, from time to time, me!

Over the last half century the birthrate in the UK has fallen dramatically. This means that our labour force has to be drawn from a smaller, but better educated pool. There is absolutely no way that we could continue having an expanding economy without the constant replenishment of our labour force without some form of immigration.

The alternative would be a return to the days when parents had seven or eight children. I don't see a queue forming for this option anytime soon. Even in the "good old days" as my father's generation called them, there was constant movement of working people from rural areas such as Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the English countryside into the big cities. Going back to the early days of Methodism there is a good argument to be had that the Wednesbury riots of the 1740s stemmed from the Welshness of the newly arrived Methodist community.

But once we start having this sort of debate all sorts of dangers start emerging. The far right will not be satisfied with "stricter controls". They want to unravel the multicultural society. They talk of deportations. At the moment they refer to "failed" asylum seekers. Once we get beyond that group the "debate" will take a more sinister term.

Immigration will never be an easy subject. Recently I've taken a bit of stick because I nuanced the difference between an asylum seeker and an "asylum seeker". Sometimes we should be careful at taking things at face value. That means not assuming that there are easy solutions.

One other point that comes out very forcibly when you talk to second or third generation Brits who have returned "home" to visit family and friends: they all realise just how British they are. We've got problems, but this isn't such a bad country.