CONSTRUCTIVE conversations: that’s what Sunder Katwala, and the institution he founded over a decade ago, British Future, is all about. The independent think-tank has earned itself a voice in the debates around immigration, identity and race, with its focus on engaging the public constructively in issues which can be polarising and divisive. “One of the challenges of this moment is that there are a lot of identity debates happening, all at once. So it can be quite frenetic,” Katwala told GG2 Power List. “What I am trying to do as person, what we are trying to do as an organisation is: have the constructive conversations that the fast-changing society needs to build more confidence in the future that we are going to have.” The biggest highlight of 2023 for Katwala has been the publication of his book, How to be a Patriot: Why love of country can end our very British culture war, in which he asks how we define patriotism in a diverse society, and offers a new perspective on understanding our collective identity. “I was trying to pull together both my per sonal experience and story of this country, but also the challenges that we face as a country. I have got confidence, optimism about the future of Britain, because it’s changed for the better in my lifetime,” he said. “If you think about growing up in the playgrounds of 1980sand 1990s, we have seen enormous change across the generations, for the better, on inclusion, on race, on discrimination. Yet, at the moment, we have the fractious debates about identity, and the so called culture war. What I was particularly trying to do in the book was, together with the questions of identity, immigration, integration and race, to ask how we could perhaps have more people with a