Distinguished friends
Khalid Abdalla
Maria Adebowale-Schwarte
Sukhpal Singh Ahluwalia
Rajesh Agrawal
Riz Ahmed
Sughra Ahmed
Keith Ajegbo
Claire Alexander
Kitty Arie
Julian Baggini
Zelda Baveystock
Haidee Bell
Richard Beswick
Dinesh Bhugra
Karan Bilimoria
Geoffrey Bindman
Karen Blackett
Nicholas Blake
Ian Blatchford
David Blunkett
Hina Bokhari
Mihir Bose
Alain de Botton
John Bowers
Stephen Briganti
Des Browne
Mukti Jain Campion
Paul Canoville
Gus Casely-Hayford
Michael Cashman
Saimo Chahal
Reeta Chakrabarti
Shami Chakrabarti
Stephen Claypole
Robin Cohen
Linda Colley
David Crystal
Angélica Dass
Prakash Daswani
Sandie Dawe
Navnit Dholakia
Sherry Dobbin
Ibrahim Dogus
Lloyd Dorfman
Alf Dubs
John Dyson
Damien Egan
Graeme Farrow
Daniel Franklin
Edie Friedman
Jitesh Gadhia
Manjit Singh Gill
Teresa Graham
Ann Grant
Susie Harries
Naomie Harris
James Hathaway
David Hencke
Sophie Herxheimer
Afua Hirsch
Michael Howard
Clive Jacobs
Kevin Jennings
Adrian Johns
Shobu Kapoor
Malik Karim
Jackie Kay
Ayub Khan-Din
Francesca Klug
Tony Kushner
Kwasi Kwarteng
Kwame Kwei-Armah
David Kynaston
Brian Lambkin
Mark Lewisohn
Joanna Lumley
Michael Mansfield
Sue McAlpine
Neil Mendoza
Nick Merriman
Munira Mirza
Abigail Morris
Hugh Muir
Tessa Murdoch
Sandy Nairne
Bushra Nasir
Susheila Nasta
Eithne Nightingale
John O’Farrell
Kenneth Olisa
Kunle Olulode
Julia Onslow-Cole
John Orna-Ornstein
Sameer Pabari
Ruth Padel
Panikos Panayi
Bhikhu Parekh
Nikesh Patel
David Pearl
Caryl Phillips
Mike Phillips
Trevor Phillips
Sunand Prasad
Kavita Puri
Charles Rix
Trevor Robinson
Aubrey Rose
Michael Rosen
Cathy Ross
Salman Rushdie
Jill Rutter
Philippe Sands
Sathnam Sanghera
Konrad Schiemann
Richard Scott
Stephen Sedley
Maggie Semple
Babita Sharma
Nikesh Shukla
Jon Snow
Sonia Solicari
Robert Soning
David Spence
Danny Sriskandarajah
Stelio Stefanou
Dick Taverne
Jane Thompson
Robert Tombs
Rumi Verjee
Patrick Vernon
Edmund de Waal
Iqbal Wahhab
Yasmin Waljee
David Warren
Iain Watson
Debbie Weekes-Bernard
Henning Wehn
Nat Wei
Janet Whitaker
Gary Younge
I grew up in Wolverhampton, where Enoch Powell was the local MP and the National Front had regular marches, creating a constant fear of being under siege in our neighbourhood. However, we all still moved on as multicultural Britain – a nation built on migration, home for political refugees and asylum seekers. The Migration Museum is essential if we want as a nation to write a narrative of this country for the 21st century.
Patrick Vernon
Patrick Vernon OBE is a committee member of Healthwatch England and associate member for the Department of History of Medicine at Warwick University. He was former chief executive of the Afiya Trust, one of the leading race equality health charities in the country. He has previously worked as a senior civil servant at the Department of Health and Local Government Association; director of the Brent Health Action Zone (Brent Primary Care Trust) and regional director for MIND; former member of the Ministerial Advisory Group for mental health and the Equality and Diversity Council. He is a trustee for Social Action for Health, North Muslim Housing Association and a patron of Santé, a Camden-based charity which aims to improve asylum seekers’ rights and health access, particularly mental health.
Patrick is also a film maker and cultural historian and founder of Every Generation Media. In 2003 he launched the 100 Great Black Britons campaign. He is also one of the leading experts on African and Caribbean family genealogy. In 2007 he became a Clore Fellow and travelled to Oman and East Africa, researching Swahili architecture and the legacy of colonisation and the slave trade. From 2006 to 2014, Patrick was a councillor in the London Borough of Hackney, where he served as the former chair of Health Scrutiny. On 22 June 2013, in partnership with the Windrush Foundation, London Baptist Church and British Futures, Patrick helped to launch a campaign called Windrush Day to celebrate migration and multicultural Britain.