Making British Citizenship Meaningful Again
While I don’t personally subscribe to the notion that nations are built on “values” I think it is important to try and reconcile ways to make British Citizenship meaningful again. That is, to make someone who is a British passport holder, or nominally British, but doesn’t partake in our civic life or values accountable for this fact. This is particularly relevant if they have inherited citizenship from one or more non-indigenous parents (where indigenous refers to English, Scottish, or Welsh, and arguably Irish but I won’t cover that here). This requires real-world consequences for those who disabuse our laws and way of life.
The idea of Britain
While Britain has existed as a political entity since the Acts of Union, I think you would be hard pressed to find concrete examples of unifying British characteristics. I would actually go further than this and state that the universalism of the monarchy and the British empire sought to placate the descent of the colonised by making British Citizenship available for all. This has resulted in an unfair settlement for two reasons: 1) Those who are indigenously British have no other national identity or rights they can assert, 2) There has been a failure to properly maintain and manage British citizenship to ensure it actually means something.
Our citizenship test is a joke
In addition to the unease at the validity of a unifying British identity outside of the empire, our citizenship test itself has been strongly undermined. Mostly focusing on reciting esoteric history, our citizenship test also outsources key elements such as English speaking and writing tests to education centres which have no incentive to reject candidates because they are getting paid either way. Numerous instances of fraud have occurred because of this, including individuals faking their identity to pass other’s tests.
Inequalities exist too: Currently there are 29 Members of the Somalian Parliament who are dual British citizens. How can it be that someone who was born in and is serving as an MP in a foreign country is “just as British” as I am, with the same voting and property rights as me? These injustices are frequent and it is necessary to manage them in order to reiterate state legitimacy and protect a semblance of Britain as it was into the future.
Other elements of modern life now make it possible to see with how much disrespect Britain and British citizenship are granted. There are numerous videos on Tiktok and Twitter/X which show people of foreign national descent desecrating British iconography, such as passports, flags or the citizenship ceremony itself. The British state and its representatives should take these instances as they are meant to be taken: hostile, anti-British, and a sign that this person is choosing to not be a British citizen.
Lawmaking doesn’t work
Numerous laws have been introduced in an effort to curtail the most barbaric cultural practiced since the liberalisation of immigration, with limited success. Female Genital Mutilation* is one such example; a cultural practice that is highly prevalent in African communities regardless of religious persuasion. It was outlawed in Britain 40 years ago, and in all of that time despite hundreds of thousands of cases each involving multiple adults committing one of the most heinous crimes it is possible to commit against a child, and numerous “zero tolerance” declarations signed, there have been barely a handful of convictions.
Our approach to the law, in which we expect people to follow it lest face consequences, does not resonate with migrant communities that live in parallel societies in Britain. You could make a thousand laws to stop this and numerous other barbaric cultural practices with much the same result. What we need is an authoritative hand willing to monitor these communities, and inflexible state representatives, willing to rescind the right of citizenship from those who disabuse our laws and way of life.
In France, girls are monitored by the state and GPs to ensure that they are not mutilated or trafficked to be mutilated. We should be using the same heavy-handed approach, and be willing to remove those who continue this cultural practice from our country when they are caught doing so. Should ritualistic animal slaughter be banned in Britain, we would need state representatives willing to monitor slaughterhouses and ensure they are abiding by this law, as well as curtail meat imports from other countries. We need the British state to actually ensure that our laws and basic unifying values are being followed.
Citizenship Deprivation as a policy mechanism
Citizenship deprivation is enabled under Section 40 of the 1981 British Nationality Act. It allows for any person to have British citizenship deprived from them by the Secretary of State if doing so is "conducive to the public good" and this applies even if that person would be made stateless, providing that:
"(a)the citizenship status results from the person’s naturalisation,
(b)the Secretary of State is satisfied that the deprivation is conducive to the public good because the person, while having that citizenship status, has conducted him or herself in a manner which is seriously prejudicial to the vital interests of the United Kingdom, any of the Islands, or any British overseas territory, and
(c)the Secretary of State has reasonable grounds for believing that the person is able, under the law of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom, to become a national of such a country or territory."
Section 40 makes it clear that any person who does not contribute to British society is eligible to have their British Citizenship deprived from them, no matter how long they have lived here or whether they were born or grew up here if they have or are entitled to another citizenship by virtue of their parent’s nationality/ies.
How would this be implementable?
You would need a team within the home office, and for judges to refer those who have or are entitled to another citizenship for review by the Secretary of State and his/her team. The team can then review cases to assess whether they should be deprived of citizenship and therefore whether they should be made to leave Britain. The team could also retroactively look at cases from the last however many years and rescind citizenship form those who have committed valid offences, forcing the descendants of those people to reapply for British citizenship if they wish to continue living here.
Note: that I am only including instances of lawbreaking, but I have no doubt this could be expanded to include those who aren’t and have never been net tax payers, Islamists who advocate for violence against infidels, multiple counts of fraud, multiple counts of antisocial behaviour, those who cannot adequately speak English and have lived here for over 10 years, so on. This is up to the view/values of the Secretary of State, really.
A real-life case: Shamima Begum
The case of Shamima Begum is a highly publicised example of citizenship deprivation. She travelled to Syria as a 15 year old to serve the Islamic State, whereupon she married an ISIS terrorist and had children, and after they passed away eventually decided she wished to return to Britain. When this was made public by journalists, then Secretary of State Sajid Javid decided to embark on the process of citizenship deprivation to prevent her from returning to Britain and the state being required to rescue her from the refugee camp she was living in.
This was a popular decision among the British public, with even left-leaning and liberal polls such as YouGov showing over 75% of people from across the political spectrum supported this decision. Despite appeals on the grounds of the ECHR and Human Rights legislation, the decision was found to be legal and upheld by British courts. This was because Shamima is entitled to Bangladeshi citizenship by descent, and Sajid’s decision did not make her stateless.
I, like I’m sure many of you, think that this was the correct decision. However, the threshold of material harm that Shamima did to British people was decidedly low in comparison with that we live with in Britain. She made some ISIS propaganda and had children by a terrorist. There were allegations of her being a morality enforcer for the Islamic State police but that has never been proved. There are, I don’t doubt hundreds of thousands of people who hold British citizenship on the same grounds as Shamima, who have committed serious and violent offences against British people for whom this treatment would be acceptable, or even preferable, to voters.
What I am outlining here is only one part of the revival of British identity necessary for this country to survive. Expecting those who hold British citizenship to live by our laws is one such basic requirement, but the mechanism I have outlined could be expanded to include many others who are positive contributors to British life.
A word on indigeneity
Those who feel, like I do, that the civic inception of Britain is not sustainable, even with an authoritarian state enforcing it, do not despair: I strongly feel that by strengthening British citizenship this policy mechanism can be used to reinforce & enhance the rights of indigenous Britons who currently have no additional recognition or benefits in law. This policy forces the issue of uneven governance and a lack of identity and recognition to be confronted, paving the way for a revival of English, Welsh, and Scottish political representation and benefits.
Other ways to make citizenship meaningful
- Grant properties of those who have been deprived of citizenship the property of the state, especially if they have been obtained through criminal enterprise.
- Implement a period of national service for anyone wishing to obtain British Citizenship. Strengthen the citizenship process more generally, but someone proving that they are willing to go to war for Britain is vital to the security of this country.
- Prevent anyone who is not a British citizen from owning property (other nations do this, we don’t). Ditto, using public services such as the NHS, accessing welfare, so on.
- Take biometrics upon deprivation of citizenship so we can ensure that this person or their descendants are not able to enter the country again.
- Prevent inheritance of British citizenship to those born in Britain without an indigenous (English, Welsh, Scottish, arguably Irish) parent. Anyone who is born here to two non-native citizenship holders should lose that status upon turning 18 and be forced to undertake the citizenship process themselves to have a right to live & work here/call themselves British.
- Implement British Citizenship cards to easily catch-out those who are illegally living in Britain, including if they have had children or worked here for a long time. These could also be entitled to only indigenously British people rather than citizenship holders.
- End dual citizenship to “force” those living here to commit to living in a way that is British, or leave. This also “forces” those who are not attached to Britain and who are living and working in another country to rescind the benefits of British citizenship. We could have this for just some countries or all, there are of course people who have dual citizenship with another country that is compatible with Britain culturally, religiously, etc. Triple/quadruple citizenships should not be possible.
- End non-reciprocal voting rights for non-citizens in Britain. Currently, any person from a commonwealth country, even if they are here on a student visa, can vote in British elections. Exceptions should be made for the Irish under the Good Friday Agreement.
- Ensure if someone is coming to live or work in Britain on a European passport passport that they are indigenous to that country. Many European countries have equally poor or inconsistent citizenship standards to us, and if we are to have migration from culturally compatible European countries we must ensure that they are legitimately from that country and holding those values.
Authoritarian Britishness?
What I have outlined here goes deeply against the national character of many Britons. I feel it is important to emphasise that the project of multiculturalism, as well as our own laissez-faire character and post-empire squeamishness, have undermined what it means to hold British citizenship. Upon doing an online mock citizenship test many English, Welsh or Scottish people feel humbled, and like someone who has obtained British citizenship is in some way “better” at being British than they are, with more of a “right” to be here. In actual fact our citizenship process is serious compromised and this policy has sought to rectify this and to make British citizenship meaningful again by depriving citizenship from those who commit crimes.
Let me know what you think.
*just to add that I, personally, think that ritual Male Genital Mutilation (circumcision as well as other mutilation practices) should also be illegal, but because of religious lobby groups this is not the case. Other ritualistic practices such as Halal and Kosher slaughter, and animal sacrifice practiced for witchcraft/animism/voodoo should also be illegal in my view. However, they aren’t currently crimes, and likely won’t be any time soon.
