I am not a foreigner. I was born at the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham in 1970 to immigrant parents from Kashmir in Pakistan.
They came here to work and improve their lives and, in turn, help England and Great Britain.
Two years before I was born, Tory MP Enoch Powell criticised mass immigration in his infamous “Rivers of Blood” speech.
In it he stated: “We must be mad, literally mad, as a nation to be permitting the annual inflow of some 50,000 dependants… It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre.”
Imagine the impact that had. It caused division, it fuelled hatred and suspicion and it made life really hard.
Anyone who did not have a white skin was subjected to racist name calling and violence.
Racist political movements such as the BNP, the National Front and the English Defence League have all used the English flag as their symbol – and toxified it in the minds of people like me.
And while the flags of other UK nations are a source of great pride, England’s red and white cross is still hugely divisive and closely associated with the far right.
England is my country. I was born here. I was educated here. I work here. But growing up here has played havoc with my identity.
You want to belong, but feel some people just don’t want you here because of your heritage.
People like Tory Norman Tebbit, who once suggested testing people’s loyalty to this country with the “cricket test” – asking who they would support in a match between England and Pakistan.
And Nigel Farage who, while campaigning for UKIP, said: “This country, in a short space of time, has frankly become unrecognisable… in many parts of England you don’t hear English spoken any more.
“This is not the kind of community we want to leave to our children and grandchildren.”
These people always have the loudest voices so they seem to represent the majority. But they don’t. They are an ignorant and fear-mongering minority.
Today, as we support England in the Euros final, remember that eight out of our 11 players have at least one parent or grandparent born overseas.
Yes, immigrants. But despite the hatred, discrimination and downright racism aimed at people like me, many of us will wear our England T-shirts, wave our St George’s flags and will the team to bring it home.
Because this is our home and our country. And at last we feel we belong.
We are being represented in all walks of life – culture, politics, media and sport.
There is still much more to be done. But we are heading in the right direction.
I have posted a photo of myself, a British Asian, wearing the flag of St George. It’s my way of sticking two fingers up at those who use it to represent racism and hatred.
And I will wear it on Sunday to cheer on the England team – white, black, mixed race – all united.
The only way to beat racism is to take control of what they fight with. And own it!
