Jon Yates

Co-founder and Strategy Director of The Challenge Network

As the founder of a charity that exists to bring communities together, I woke up this morning with feelings I had not experienced since the riots. I felt again that numbing sense of disbelief, that mourning and sadness at accepting the reality followed by that overwhelming desire to find a way to mend what feels broken.

Jemma Wayne

Author and Journalist

What is sad, and a tad frightening, are the undeniable gains that Ukip has recently made in membership and in elections. Despite the party's claims to want to protect Britain, what Ukip represents is not the deeply ingrained British values of liberty and equality, but actually, everything opposite to that.

Jasdev Singh Rai

Medical Doctor, with MA in politics, human rights activist and community worker

But this entire idea of breaking from Europe and going solo lacks realism. How will UK single compete in a tough economic world on its own. Ukip is harking back to grandiose days of the Empire.

Bob Morgan

Former Met Police, Liberal Democrat Councillor and Campaigner, Community Development Officer

Ordinary immigrants coming into the UK did not invent numerous devious ways of lending and re-lending useless loans to get rich people even richer which we now know led to the banking collapse and the near ruining of our economy - but you would think they did the way people are piling in.

Harry Cooper

A Brussels-based Brit

I never thought I'd say this, but I think the rise of Ukip is overall a very positive development in British politics. Why? Because the British people see in Mr Farage a person who understands them. In Ukip they see a movement that stands apart from the fossils in Westminster. And for the first time since 1997 when Blair swept into power, there is a sense that things could be different...The problem is that the political parties that dominate British politics all end up saying roughly the same thing. There might be rhetorical differences, but ultimately they are singing from the same hymn sheet.

Anna Ost

London-based human rights professional working with survivors of cruelty

Trafficking victims from outside the EU receive inferior care compared to those trafficked within the UK and Europe, but with the abolition of the UK Border Agency Theresa May has the opportunity to ensure victims are more adequately supported.

Artur Conka

Photographer and creator of Lunik IX – a short film depicting life of the Roma in Slovakia

In the UK, I feel incredibly lucky to be treated the same as everyone else in this country. Never would I be refused a seat in a restaurant or feel discriminated when applying for a job in London, but last time I visited Kosice I was refused service in a shop simply because I am Roma.

Oana Romocea

Communications Specialist and Researcher in Migration and Media Studies

It is baffling how immigration has changed the game in British politics these days. There are more fundamentally important issues facing British society, most notably a stalled economy that has the country on the edge of a triple-dip recession. Yet, the immigration threat, and the supposed ills it has unleashed on Britain, has gripped the public imagination.

Karen Campbell

Author of This Is Where I Am

Glasgow, the city in which I grew up, has the largest amount of refugees and asylum seekers in Scotland. Although mostly pushed to the periphery, this new wave of Glaswegians are quietly weaving themselves in to the fabric of the city - and none more so than my friend Farida.

Nadhim Zahawi

Conservative Member of Parliament for Stratford-on-Avon

For me it was a speech that showed that after three years in coalition our resolve to do what is right for this country has not left us, and whilst a Queen's Speech is not the place for economic and fiscal policy, it also showed that we are still committed to our central task.

Jerome Phelps

Director of Detention Action

Ukip won no seats at that election, of course. Just as they have won no seats since. Yet this week's Queen's Speech shows that, even without policies, Farage is starting to shape Britain in his image. For some migrants, that Britain will look a little like Guantanamo Bay.

Chris Bryant

Shadow Immigration Minister

All the pre-briefing about the Queen's Speech suggested that its centrepiece, its pièce de résistance, would be a new immigration bill. Trumpets sounded. The drum roll played. But by the time the Queen had returned to Buckingham Palace and sent the Crown back to the Tower of London, the government confessed that all they had come up with was a set of three measures that they are considering putting into a Bill that will not even be ready for presenting to parliament until the autumn.

Chibo Onyeji

Chair of the European Network Against Racism (ENAR)

Public and political discourses all too often spread negative perceptions about ethnic minorities and migrants and portray them as a 'burden' to European welfare systems and a constraint on economic growth in the EU. It's now time to put the facts right.

Matthew Reed

Chief Executive of The Children’s Society

If you'd listened to the Queen's Speech, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the government's agenda for the next year isn't going to have a big impact on children. But changes to immigration, anti-social behaviour measures and the care system will all make a real difference - both positive and negative - to some of the most vulnerable children in the UK

Will Black

Writer with a background in anthropology and mental health care

Cameron appears to have frantically scribbled the policy on a napkin as he watched the local election results come in. Since his party's woeful performance, he has suddenly become more jittery about immigration than Captain Hook was about ticking clocks.

Mark Serwotka

General secretary of the Public and Commercial Services union

According to the Queen in her speech at the state opening of parliament today, the government "will continue to focus on building a stronger economy". Can you run that past us again please, Your Majesty? That will presumably be the same government that has inflicted on us the slowest economic recovery in almost 150 years?