My great grandparents on both sides of the family were “illegal immigrants” who came to Britain by boat to escape religious persecution. You won’t find them on any passenger manifests. You won’t find any tales of them rising from such ignoble beginnings to great status and wealth

But they had children and those children had children. Their descendants were tailors, pressers, cabinet makers, hairdressers, taxi drivers, furriers, secretaries, a ballet dancer, an artist, a sales rep, an accountant, a writer.

They fought for Britain in two world wars. They fought the fascists in Cable Street. They paid their taxes. They looked after their neighbours. They gave to charity. They saved lives. They lived and loved well.

If they hadn’t made that long, dangerous journey by boat, they’d have been slaughtered in a pogrom, or if they’d survived that, taken another dangerous journey, under duress, to a concentration camp.

Hundreds of lives would never have come into being. The thousands of ways that my family have contributed to British society would never have happened, if they hadn’t first come here by boat, unwanted and unwelcome.