If there was a prize for the most reasonable person on social media, the runaway winner would surely be Sunder Katwala.

His poise, calm and determination to always try to find what unites people rather than divides them — based on a rigorous use of evidence and facts — are all the more remarkable given that the subjects on which he posts more than any others are immigration and identity. Both of these are usually guaranteed to draw heat rather than light.

Katwala is director of British Future, a think tank focused on “engaging people’s hopes and fears about integration and immigration, identity and race”. Having spent decades focused on these two most intractable issues, he has now distilled his thoughts in a book: How to Be a Patriot.

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Sunder Katwala (Photo: Alamy)

Whatever one’s position on immigration, we can surely all agree that some form of shared identity as Brits is a necessary step to tackling, let alone solving, some of the issues around, for instance, Muslim extremism and the re-emergence of the far right. And, as Katwala acknowleges, for Jews, patriotism is almost second nature.

When we meet, I realise straight away that I have misunderstood him. I had assumed from his reasonableness on Twitter and his penchant for marshalling facts in argument that he was, above all else, rational.

He is that, of course, but he is also passionate. He loves his country, and he wants to explain why and how that is the key. He proclaims: “I’ve got confidence about this country because of my experience of this country.”

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Katwala's book (Photo: Handout)

Katwala is British, born in Doncaster. But he is also, as he puts it, “mixed”. His mother is Irish Catholic and his father Indian — a Hindu who converted, at least nominally, to Catholicism. For him, the word mixed is a “useful label”, but he does not confuse it with national identity.

Although his analysis of his own background and how Britain has become so much more relaxed about some aspects of all this (he cites a poll showing that only 3 per cent of people now think it is “very important” to be truly British) is itself fascinating, the real purpose of the book is the idea he posits that while the debates on immigration may rage, there is, in fact, a solution to the issue of identity that is compatible with any mainstream approach. That solution is patriotism.

The book is not primarily concerned with Jews — he focuses on more recent immigrant communities — but the resonances are striking.

His central idea will be very familiar to any Jewish reader — and it is certainly applicable to some of the issues around parts of the Charedi community that seem to extricate themselves from society and deny children a proper schooling.

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Sunder Katwala (Photo: Handout)

Obvious as the glue of patriotism might seem to those of us who are used to a weekly synagogue prayer for the Royal Family, it’s still a remarkable contribution to the debate. Patriotism is often conflated with nationalism, and for many of those Katwala is seeking to bring with him, both are dirty words.

He acknowledges that a book on patriotism as the bedrock of identity is “counter zeitgeist”, but his argument is deeply persuasive.

That’s because he deals with reality rather than caricatures. For one thing, he manages genuinely to understand what underpins the different points of view on immigration and identity, from those who seem to relish the idea of a “them and us” debate to those who claim that any discussion of problems with immigration is racist, as well as the political and societal pushes that drive the debate.

Passionate about Everton, he draws clear and useful parallels with football: being an Evertonian “is a life-long allegiance that I certainly acquired by chance.

Being part of this footballing tribe taught me many different things about how identity works.”

The Hillsborough tragedy showed him the inclusive side of that: “It did not just change how I thought about Liverpool, and football, but gave me a new understanding about how identity works too. I was proud of how we mourned alongside our local rivals.”

But there was a darker side to that identity, too: “Everton are white” was a chant at his club’s stadium Goodison Park after Liverpool signed England’s black forward John Barnes in 1987. “That my Evertonian tribe had a racism problem became impossible to ignore.”

But football has changed — as has society. As he and many others have pointed out, the men and women’s England teams now bring us together where once the men’s team was the focus of a racial divide. That is patriotism.

For Jews, patriotism is ingrained. For many others it is second nature, too. But for those for whom patriotism is something to shun, Katwala makes a compelling case.

‘How to Be a Patriot: Why Love of Country Can End our Very British Culture War’ is published by Harper North