Citizenship Rights under threat in racist Nationality and Borders Bill
JVL Introduction
The Good Law Project has published this summary advice that they have commissioned, together with CAGE and Media Diversified. Its focus is Clause 9 of the Nationality and Borders Bill (NABB) – the right to citizenship. It notes Hannah Arendt’s observation that citizenship is “the right to have rights” and that the Home Office now worryingly argues that “British citizenship is a privilege not a right”.
The proposals in this bill are breathtaking, not least for how they would place the UK on a par with some of the most racist regimes and far right movements across the world and would make a mockery of even the illusion that Britain is a welcoming country. The biggest threats are to Asian and Black citizens of this country who could be deprived of their citizenship. This is the context in which the Bill proposes increased and extensive powers that would rest with the Home Secretary alone.
Together with the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill and the Elections Bill (now passed) as well as the proposal to “reform” the Human Rights Act and replace it with a Bill of Rights, the NABB is part of a raft of legislative proposals that threaten freedoms, democracy, human rights, equality and justice in this country.
Information is key but it is not enough on its own, and like the Police Bill, unity is vital to campaigning against it. We shall do our best to provide updates on this Bill especially as it wends its tortuous path to the House of Lords and back to the Commons some time in March.
The article contains links to the full advice as commissioned, about the organisations involved and a link to support the Good Law Project itself.
This article was originally published by The Good Law Project on Tue 18 Jan 2022. Read the original here.
The Nationality and Borders Bill is racist – we want Government to think again
“The provisions will affect the citizenship of almost half of all Asian British people and two in five Black Britons. “
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I am horrified to think that my citizenship granted to me 39 years ago could be revoked for the slightest of misdemeanors by this or any future even more racist government. My indigenous husband’s citizenship however is safe. What about my children’s? It’s making me feel shackled with a yoke labelled – unwanted – so watch what you think, say and do.
As I understand it even the most indigenous are at risk if they have the right to citizenship of another country. I was born in Britain and have been a British citizen all my life but because my father was born in Ireland I also have Irish citizenship. Ms Patel would have the right to deprive me of British citizenship but not of Irish citizenship. I believe that the rights of Irish people to live in Britain are protected by international agreements so I should be fairly safe in being able to continue to live here but I owe this to the fact that I am Irish, not the fact that I am British. As has been pointed out British Jews do not necessarily have this layer of protection.
We are evolving into a Dictatorship, which will head us in the direction of Fascism.
If we had a Press that told the truth, then the people wouldn’t be sleep walking into it. Then there’s the BBC, which is not recognisable from it past glory days, when it told the truth to the people, backed up with evidence.
We trusted the BBC Panorama Programmes, because they didn’t hold back from telling the truth, now the Government has complete influence over it.