Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is an author, broadcaster and weekly columnist for the Independent and Evening Standard.

“Africans were in Britain long before the English were”, (Peter Fryer) was quoted to make the point that people are shocked by this as they don’t realise that Africans migrated to the UK along with the Romans.

Peter Fryer was someone who attempted to change and challenge the truth about black and Asian history in Britain. There’s also an untold story of Islamic slavery; in the first century after Islam, slaves were taken from the east African coast and “mercilessly abused,”. Telling one side of the story is wrong.

The next challenge is more than inclusion - it’s a very difficult conversation about history and heritage and the good and bad of it. The questions are not simply who we are and who owns our heritage, but all the tribes in our country need to ask:

“Would we be who we are without deep interactions with one another?”

Living in the West has given us freedoms, allowed us to open up our lives. Now is the time to ask some interesting questions about being open to each other.

Contrasting opinions of Britishness exist within ‘New Labour’ which need to be addressed:

• David Lammy’s view as spoken about at the conference.
• And Gordon Brown’s version, as mediated through the press.

Discussion of heritage should be approached in terms of its widest interpretation. When we buy into a collective heritage and explore it for what it is, we can understand so much more.

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