The mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees, is to argue at the United Nations that cities must be given a stronger and more formal role in global negotiations on migration.
Rees, who becomes the first mayor to take part in UN discussions on the global compact for migration in New York, said cities as well as national governments needed to be involved in the attempt to create a worldwide framework for the management of migration.
Speaking before his appearance on Tuesday, Rees told the Guardian: “Cities need a voice at the table. Most migrants leave cities, go to cities and return to cities. Cities are on the frontline of making migration work for everybody. Therefore cities have invaluable insight when it comes to understanding both the benefits and challenges of mass movements of people.”
Rees argued that national governments alone did not have the “tools” needed to make effective change. “We need not just city leaders but international networks of cities as equal partners in shaping national and international policy,” he said.
“If cities have a place at the table when discussing things like migration, you’ll get a different kind of discussion. The nature of citizenship and belonging in a city is subtly but importantly different to the nature of citizenship and belonging in a country.”
Rees said national conversations about migration tended to be about deterring it. “At the city level, our conversation about Bristol’s identity, for example, constantly boasts we’re a city of 91 languages. We celebrate that. We use it as a positive asset for attracting inward investment that we’re a city of 187 countries of origin. You couldn’t boast at a national level about diversity like that. You can at a city level.”
Rees, the only directly elected mayor in Europe of African descent, is also talking about his own heritage at the UN. “My father came from Jamaica as a 12-year-old. The white side of my family – my mum’s side – are Welsh and English. My Welsh grandfather came here as a migrant worker from Merthyr Tydfil.
“Bristol is a city with an international heritage with savoury and unsavoury elements. It selected me as the first directed elected European mayor of African heritage. I’m a child of migration.”