Now my eight-year-old thinks he could be deported, it's time to face the truth about immigration and the EU

Fact: Just 3.3 per cent of the world’s population are migrants, little more than in 1990. Even within the EU, where citizens are free to live wherever they want, only 2.8 per cent reside outside their own country

Ukip Leader Nigel Farage with Leave supporters in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, yesterday

“Am I a foreigner, Mum?” I was filling the car with petrol when my eight-year-old old threw me this curve ball.

“Depends on your definition of foreign,” I said, somewhat disconcerted.

“I’ve got an Irish passport, so technically, I’m foreign.”

“Well, you’re half English…..”

“So, if the side that hates foreigners wins on Thursday, will we have to leave England?”

A note to the Leave campaign: most children over the age of six can read. I try to shield my child from the relentless, hateful images and rhetoric depicting immigrants as a swarm of spongers, pushing “us” to breaking point, but it’s not always possible. The leaflets through the door, the tabloid headlines on the garage forecourts, the posters in the streets. Children of immigrants like me are feeling unwelcome and fearful of their future here as possible “foreigners”.

The Leave campaign has traded in anti-immigrant rhetoric. Boris Johnson and Michael Gove got into an unwashed bed with the likes of Nigel Farage and the BNP and, in doing so, have legitimised far right nationalism and xenophobia. All the perfumes of Arabia will never remove the putrid pong from their political portfolios.

Meanwhile, the Remain camp has largely failed to expound the benefits of immigration and make a compelling case for unity and collaboration. According to Peter Sutherland, the UN special representative for migration, concern about immigrants falls sharply when people are given even rudimentary facts. In April, The New Scientist produced an independent special report on immigration. The following are just some of the facts overlooked in the EU referendum debate.

Fact: In a survey of 15 European countries, the UN’s International Labour Organisation (ILO) found that, for every 1 per cent increase in the country’s population caused by immigration, its GDP grew between 1.25 and 1.5 per cent.

Fact: The World Bank estimates that if immigrants increased the workforce of wealthy countries by 3 per cent, that would boost world GDP by $356 billion by 2025. Further, a meta-analysis of several independent mathematical models suggests that removing all barriers to immigration would increase world GDP by between 50 and 150 per cent.

Fact: Just 3.3 per cent of the world’s population are migrants, little more than in 1990. Even within the EU, where citizens are free to live wherever they want, only 2.8 per cent reside outside their own country.

“The idea that, without border controls, everyone moves is contradicted by the evidence,” says Phillippe Legrain of the London School of Economics. “Sweden is 6 times richer than Romania and, despite free movement within the EU being permissible, Romania is not depopulated.”

Fact: According to the ILO, low skilled migrants do “dirty, dangerous and difficult jobs, which locals do not want – crop picking, care work, cleaning.” Meanwhile highly skilled migrants fill chronic labour shortages in healthcare, education and IT. Nearly a third of UK doctors and 13 per cent of nurses are foreign born. The NHS would collapse without immigrants.

What of the strain “they” put on services? Not borne out by evidence. Immigrants go where there are jobs, not benefits.

Fact: The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, which represents 34 of the world’s richest nations, calculates that its immigrants on average pay as much in taxes as they take in benefits.

Research suggests that EU workers in the UK take less in benefits than native Brits do. Based on recent numbers, Britain should conservatively expect 140,000 net immigrants a year for the next 50 years.

Fact: The Office for Budget Responsibility, the UK’s fiscal watchdog, calculates that if that number doubled, it would cut UK government debt by almost a third while stopping immigration would increase our debt by almost 50 per cent.

Fact: Immigrants largely aren’t to blame for housing and school place shortages. These are just as much a direct result of government cuts, underinvestment and austerity. The global economic crash wasn’t caused by immigrants, either.

I’m voting to remain in the EU, knowing that it’s a flawed institution. As an adviser on organisational behaviour and ethics, I’ve worked with governments, media, corporates and NGOs. I know the perfect system doesn’t exist. Every organisation has its faults because they’re run by fallible individuals. Some more fallible than others.

The Brexiteers’ vision of being cast adrift on an isolationist island leaves me cold.

I want my child to grow up in a society where citizens have human rights, worker protections and environmental safeguards. One that espouses kindness and compassion, as opposed to fear and hatred. For our children’s sake, I hope “the side that hates foreigners” doesn’t win on Thursday.