Alp Mehmet

Chairman of Migration Watch UK

Alp Mehmet came to Britain from Cyprus in 1956 at the age of eight, speaking no English. He began his career as an Immigration Officer in 1970 and later served as an Entry Clearance Officer, including a secondment to the Foreign Office at the British High Commission in Lagos between 1979 and 1983. He subsequently transferred to His Majesty’s Diplomatic Service, serving in Nigeria, Romania, Germany, and Iceland, where he was posted twice. He retired in 2008 after four years as HM Ambassador to Iceland, becoming the first first generation immigrant to be appointed to that post.

In 2009, he joined Migration Watch UK, serving as vice chairman until 2019, when he succeeded Andrew Green as chairman. Migration Watch UK was co founded in 2001 by Lord Green and David Coleman, Professor of Demography at the University of Oxford. A regular speaker and writer on migration, race, and community relations, Alp Mehmet frequently appears on television and radio and has given evidence to parliamentary committees, most recently to the House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee on migrant integration.

He was educated at Parmiter's Grammar School and at University of the West of England, then Bristol Polytechnic, where he met his future wife from South Wales. They were married for fifty four years until her death in 2023. He has been a school governor for three decades, serving as chairman from 2015 to 2022, and remains a trustee of the school’s foundation, established in 1681.