The citizenship debate in the UK is a slippery slope

Revoking citizenship for terror suspects cuts at the heart of the nation state, writes HA Hellyer.

A woman reacts after leaving flowers outside Royal Artillery Barracks, Woolwich Headquarters, close to the scene where a soldier was murdered in John Wilson Street, Woolwich, south east London, on MayShow more

In a recent public engagement with the British foreign secretary Philip Hammond, I asked him to clarify parts of the new UK counter-extremism strategy – and particularly on the point of citizenship. The idea of revoking citizenship is something that we ought to be very careful about because it hits at the core of the notion of the nation state. But this is precisely what is being suggested in the new counter-extremism strategy.

Citizens are citizens – if they are naturalised citizens, and have not become citizens under false pretences, they are citizens as much as citizens from birth. The state might punish them, fine them, imprison them, or otherwise penalise them, but the state ought not to have the ability to remove their ability to claim they are, in fact, British. Even under the existing offence of high treason in English law, the maximum punishment is life imprisonment, the last person having been executed for that crime being in 1946.

Citizenship is at the bedrock of the modern state – and the ability of the state to take it away at all, let alone through an arbitrary executive action (rather than through a judicial process), has incredibly profound ramifications.

When confronted with that issue, however, the foreign secretary’s response was rather instructive. He correctly noted that English law and European law forbade the converting of citizens into stateless persons – as such, a British citizen who had only one nationality could not be stripped of citizenship, if that would result in making him or her stateless. He then went on to say, however, that the stripping of dual nationals of British citizenship was a “tool” that the UK needed to maintain in its counter-extremism strategy.

The framing was also rather telling: "Where people come to our country, seek British citizenship, only to actively attack and undermine our core values: yes, we must have available to us the tool of revocation of citizenship.” The subtext here is quite clear. The government notes that dual nationals have ”come” to “our” country. Let alone the issues pertaining to “our” and “core values”, which are discussions in and of themselves – the presumption that dual nationals have “come” to our country is unfounded.

There is no reliable figure for the number of dual nationals in the UK. We do know that about 13 per cent of Britons do not self-categorise themselves as white, and presumably have access to another nationality document. The proportion of ethnic minorities is also increasing, although at a gradual rate. Out of those who do describe themselves as white, there are many who would also have access to another nationality. That includes, incidentally, the previous deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, whose mother was Dutch, and grandmother was Russian.

Many serving members of parliament have other nationalities, from across the political spectrum. Britons of all ethnic backgrounds, including Caucasians, have claims to other citizenships. Why is their nationality somehow less inviolable than those who have only one nationality? Why is it possible for the executive to consider revoking their nationality, while others may be penalised in a variety of other fashions? Are we not entertaining, in a blatant fashion, the notion of two-tiered citizenship – one level of citizenship for those who cannot claim another passport, and one level for those who can, by an accident of not their birth, but the birth of an ancestor?

It is a dangerous proposition indeed. The foreign secretary indicated that this tool was meant to be used on people who come to our country – but most dual nationals have not come to the UK. They were born in the UK – it is their parents or grandparents, or even great grandparents, who might have come to the UK. Are we prepared to degrade their citizenship by suggesting it can be taken away by the executive, in a way that is impossible for others, even if they are guilty of the same offence?

There are further questions to be asked about this proposition; what is the crime that would allow the executive to carry out this arbitrary action? It’s certainly not high treason, not under current English law – is it, thus, not an offence that could be proven in English law in the first place, but an arbitrary decision by the home secretary? Why should a third generation Irish-Briton or Indian-Briton be liable to such an action? If someone acquires a non-British citizenship later on in life, have they suddenly forfeited something of their British citizenship, even if their forefathers for 20 generations were of the British Isles? If someone of mixed parentage decides to take on another passport, in addition to their birth-citizenship of the UK, are they somehow “less British” than before?

There is something deeply troubling about the entire discussion, where dual nationals are discussed in this manner in public discourse. It’s a slippery slope indeed – and one hopes that level heads within the government will recognise the problems endemic therein. With rapists, mass murderers and complete scoundrels, we punish with the tools available in law – even the deprivation of their liberty for the remainder of their lives – but we do not remove their connection to the British polity. There is little reason for us to begin another precedent altogether with extremists.

Dr HA Hellyer is an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, and a non-resident senior fellow at the Rafik Hariri Centre for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council in Washington DC

On Twitter: @hahellyer