I thought I was British
Mike Cushman looks at how UK citizenship law interacts with the Israeli Law of ‘Return’ to undermine the secure right of all British Jews to live in Britain. He argues that this is a yet further reason for the Labour Party to be more forthright in its opposition to the Nationality and Borders Bill. He shows how the laws provide a basis for any future government to expel all Jews from the United Kingdom.
This article was first published by Skwawkbox
I thou
ght I was British… but then I read section 40 of the 1981 British Nationality Act:
The Secretary of State may by order deprive a person of a citizenship status if the Secretary of State is satisfied that deprivation is conducive to the public good
but not, with due regard for international Law, if that renders a person stateless – Theresa May was wrong, you cannot be ‘a citizen of nowhere’.
However, there was a get-out, you could lose your British citizenship if “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”.
This makes everyone who is fortunate enough to have a Jewish Mother, who in turn had a Jewish Mother, with chicken soup and warm hand-knitted pullovers going back through the generations, only a provisional British citizen. Ever since July 1950 every Jew has the right to ‘make Aliyah’, to ‘return’ to Israel and take up Israeli citizenship. This right belongs to every Jew without condition: Zionist or anti-Zionist; secular or observant; Keir Starmers’s wife or Tony Greenstein.
For those of us able to make the connection, this became obvious when Shamima Begum was deemed to be eligible for Bangladeshi citizenship on far more flimsy grounds.
The current Nationality and Borders Bill does not change this underlying reality but it intensifies the risk: now the Secretary of State does not even need to tell you that you are British no more. Under clause 9 of the Bill notice of deprivation of citizenship need not be given,
if it appears to the Secretary of State that—
(c) notice under that subsection should not be given—(i) in the interests of national security,
(ii) in the interests of the relationship between the United Kingdom and another country, or
(iii) otherwise in the public interest.
My right to live in Britain is conditional on the goodwill and sound judgement of the Home Secretary, a post that in recent years has been held by figures from Michael Howard to Priti Patel by way of David Blunkett and Charles Clark.
These less than stalwart defenders of the liberties of disruptive citizens have been advised by the civil servants who brought us the Windrush scandal and detention centres outsourced to G4S and Serco, while ignoring the well-documented malign regimes inflicted by their favoured contractors.
Now my rights to even be informed of a life-changing decision depend upon their calculation of what is in “the public interest”. If I ever found out about it before I found myself at Ben Gurion airport, I might challenge the decision through Judicial Review; but only if I manage to do to that before the Government implements its plan to reduce that right to something less than nugatory.
If there is an existential threat to British Jews it does not flow from Jeremy Corbyn’s doomed promotion of Palestinian rights. It is embedded in British Law, ready to hand for any future Government eager to repeat Edward the First’s expulsion of the Jews from England – maybe the devolved nations will resile from that barbarity.
We all have a responsibility to demand a fundamental change to Thatcher’s narrowing of citizenship rights – Jews more than anyone else because of the threat to our status. There are, indeed, people we would rather not have as part of our community because of the heinous acts they have committed; the Government would extend that to future acts they are merely anticipated to commit. Inconveniently, in many cases their behaviour is the result of their upbringing in Britain and is our responsibility and cannot be outsourced to some other country they have a putative connection with.
Is it too much to expect that Keir Starmer will campaign on this? If he does not want to do it to repair his tattered reputation as a human rights lawyer then he might at least take it up to protect his own wife and children. Even if this carries the regrettable, for him, corollary of enhancing the rights of Jewish Voice for Labour members.
“Is it too much to expect that Keir Starmer will campaign on this?“. Judging by the man’s open contempt for the opinions of the members of JVL, yes, it is.
When Brexit was a certainty the good news was that I could leave the country. The bad news: it’s to Israel. I have found that Poland could give me citizenship owing to a Polish grandparent, so this possible stripping of British rights could be very wide indeed.
The ‘right of return’ under Israeli law extends not only to everyone with one Jewish grandparent but also to their spouses. So that includes Starmer himself. Likewise Irish law entitles everyone with one grandparent
born anywhere in Ireland to an Irish passport, which would include the entire membership of the Orange Order and all the UDP MPs [even so I am still against it!]
“their behaviour is the result of their upbringing in Britain and is our responsibility and cannot be outsourced to some other country”. Very well put. The Daily Mail may see it differently. My mother always despised certain papers for having being Moselyite. Same mentally, and for the time being at least, different targets. But wait till it really hits the fan, if further disastrous excesses in financialised capitalism lead to actual pitchforks and implements upon. Who to throw under the bus then? Everyone’s “at it” – but who to blame? The worst anti-Semitism I’ve heard sprang from the jealous minds of shameless ‘businessmen’.
Imagine this legislation being at the disposal of an even further Right government than the one we have now.
One that puts into law, let’s call it the “British National Law” or something, the assertion that “Britain has an Established Church and the monarch is its head.. Therefore, Britain is a Christian state and to that end, only British Christians have the right to self-determination in Britain.”
Far fetched? Maybe. But it’s not as though this sort of thing hasn’t happened before.
And TBH, I’m not entirely sure Starmer’s party would make too much noise about it. Particularly if the press were all behind it.
After Brexit I got an Irish passport because of my mother’s nationality at birth; it still feels a bit spivvy to have more than one passport and I am often bothered by friends whose children seem to have several. More importantly I am bothered by Mike saying that ‘there are indeed people we would rather not have as part of our community because of the heinous acts they have committed’. In that case our responsibilty is to charge and try them, not to take away their citizenship — one of the highest penalties under international law. I saw this in practice in 1991 with the mass disenfranchisement of Czech Roma (the nee Czech Republic government simply declared that the Rome were really Slovakian). I am sure you don’t mean it that way, Mike, but a shudder runs though me and I think of Shamima Begum when I read that sentence.
I was actually thinking of cases where people had lived in Britain since they small children and then committed a serious crime. It is Britain’s responsibility to deal with them after release, not pass the responsibility on to some other country which has no part in shaping them.
In the case of Shamina Begum, if she did anything wrong she should be held to account for it in a British court. Why should Bangladesh have to deal with any problem, it’s nothing to do with them?
Very well put. I trust that Keir Starmer is conversant with the facts???
While I sympathise with the sentiment behind this article, I wonder if it is wise to go back to the time of Edward the Third, i.e. the thirteenth century. Pro-Israeli advocates often do this while referring back to the mediaeval blood libel, but it recalls as an epoch of religious fanaticism and mumbo-jumbo that seems totally divorced from our current reality. England’s small Jewish minority suffered terribly at the hands of a population that often held it guilty of Christ-killing and inflicted terrible terrible abuses on it. However this was also the century that witnessed the French crusade against the Cathars in what is now southern France, where they practically wiped out every man, woman and child involved in that religion.
I recall that before the 2019 election various prominent Guardian columnists were talking about the terrible but unspecified things that a future Labour Government was planning to do to Jews and about how Jews they knew were packing their suitcases ready to flee if Labour came to power or looking for friends who would hide them in their attics. If the Labour Party then had proposed something like the Nationality and Borders Bill all their fears would have been confirmed. Of course now that it is that nice Ms Patel who is proposing it there is not a peep of protest out of them.
The Israel Law of Return also applies to people who have converted to Judaism and presumably their spouses, children and grandchildren.
Those of us who are entitled to apply for German citizenship as a result of having one of our parents’ of grandparents’ German citizenship revoked by the Nazi regime (a lot of children and grandchildren etc. of German Jews, but also of German communists, socialists, Jehovah’s witnesses, Quakers and no doubt others) are also under threat from this act. This is enshrined in Article 116 (2) of the Basic Law (Section 15 of the German Nationality Act). I suspect for some Jews concerned, Israel may not want us (it has a clause barring people hostile to Israel in its law of return), so Germany it is.
The looser a non-UK country’s citizenship law, the more under threat a person with some mixed heritage is. As the case of Shamima Begum shows, any home secretary is likely to give that law the loosest interpretation possible.
This is outrageous. I am horrified!
I have never thought of myself as anything other than British and certainly not Jewish. But I had a Jewish mother (born in London) and Jewish immigrant grandparents.
I grew up in a very English ‘Quaker’ village.
This Bill must be opposed tooth and nail.
I see that the the Jewish Chronicle is also alarmed at the Law:
https://www.thejc.com/lets-talk/all/are-you-comfortable-letting-the-government-shred-your-citizenship-5APCKbu8kW3v9PgqKv0JLy
Oh the irony!
“We all have a responsibility to demand a fundamental change to Thatcher’s narrowing of citizenship rights – Jews more than anyone else because of the threat to our status.”
More that anyone else. Oh, really?
“The application process required an interview at the headquarters of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate in Croydon. [ . . .] When my father described how he had been treated in this interview I shared his humiliation. As I sat by his side, he held fast to my hand, his grasp as tight as that of a man who was drowning. He seemed to be forcing air into his lungs through a throat constricted with the effort not to cry, not to scream in frustration. His need to tell his story fought against his distress; he could barely speak. I felt as if I was manipulating mental forceps to extract word by word what had happened.
My father, then fifty-seven, was interviewed by a young woman who not only insulted and intimidated him but also accused him of lying, of being ‘an illegal immigrant’ [. . .] This representative of the British immigration service declared that all his records, including his RAF record and original passport, were probably forgeries. [. . .] my father, [. . .] not complaining or raising his voice [. . .] just bent to pick up his papers, which the interviewer had swept off her desk onto the floor [. . .]. Once gathered, he did not look at her again but stood with his head held high, turned his back on her, walked out of her office and left the building.
“ [. . . ] He carried all his records to the Jamaican High Commission where, […] he had to formally renounce his British citizenship, an act which deeply pained him.”
Pages16/17 in Hazel V. Carby’s beautifully written and painful book.
https://www.versobooks.com/books/3914-imperial-intimacies
I have previously thought of how very British you are, Mike. I observed you in action at a JVL Members Meeting, big, bluff and straight talking.
You demonstrate the legendary, aspirational, British sense of fair play. It is not found within the British establishment media, some of which has always been racist and fundamentally nasty about Socialist British Jews. A basic sense of fairness does not exist within the Guardian or the BBC. A sense of fairness does not exist within the British Labour Party; perhaps it never has.
I have found a deep sense of fairness for all within Jewish Voice for Labour and in British Socialist Jews who I have met or learned from or read about.
I recall my fair haired and blue eyed father saying to me that he might have been killed by the Nazis, if they had got into Britain, on account of having Jewish descent. That was through his Jewish grandmother. It would have been good enough for the Nazis. She was actually insufficiently Jewish. Only her father was Jewish, not her mother. She was Christian by religion.
I believe that Starmer’s wife is of similar descent, from a Jewish father only. I think that Keir Starmer’s wife is actually a Jewish convert, by religion.
My legendary Jewish great-grandmother was well regarded in the family. She was a high achieving woman. She had a chain of greengrocery shops and she also bore lots of children. There is a family legend, no more, of a proud distant descent from famous Portsmouth mayor Emanuel Emanuel.
Fascinating. Thank you for your clarity, and opening my eyes to this heinous law. (and thank you for introducing me to two new words – nugatry & resile!) Government is Another Country and our Government has been set up to reduce Democracy as much as it can, by stealth and incomprehensible laws. Our current Government and that of Kier Starmer, if Labour were to get into ‘power’ would be the pretend ‘Opposition’.
With all due respect to Mike and JVL (and I have lots of respect for them), I really don’t like this article. The Borders and Nationalities Bill is a serious threat not just to asylum seekers who are trying to find refuge here, but also to up to 6 million people in Britain who were born to foreign parents and could be deported without even prior notification.
This legislation is clearly not directed at Jews and there is no indication that the government wants to deport people to Israel. By implying it, I think your are downplaying what is really at stake here.
You are also feeding into the lie that there is a huge problem with antisemitism in society (or in government, as in this case). Wasn’t JVL formed to proof that this is nonsense?
Tina
There were several points in the article and you seem to have missed most of them.
1. To show the frighteningly wide threat of the Bill by showing that, even if unintentionally, it affects every Jew and to provoke readers into thinking ‘if every Jew, then who else’. The commentaries on various places seem to indicate some success in this.
2. That despite the claimed philosemitism of both the Tories and the Labour leadership they are prepared to introduce such dangerous legislation. So asking Jews who their real friends are.
3. To publicise the implications of the the Law of Return in undermining the status of every diaspora Jew.
4. To extend the coalition against NABB to include many who have previously been unconcerned.
JVL was not set up to marginalise the threat of antisemitism. It is real but not to the extent that passionate Zionists would have us believe for their own ends. Our goal was to challenge the use of false allegations of antisemitism to defend Israel and to attack Socialists and supporters of Palestine. We campaigned to stop the largely latent danger of antisemitism being given more prominence than the daily threats of active anti Black, Asian, Muslim, GRT racism.
I do like the relationship between JVL and Skwawkbox, guest articles particularly on JVL always take the debate to a higher level
This year make it a resolution to spread further afield, afirm your right to free speech and challenge other outlets to publish your articles
Labour List, New Statesmen, Guardian, Mirror, Jewish Chronicle, Daily Mail
Put up a list of people prepared to appear on News Channels and programmes like HardTalk, no part of the media is a no go area
Including Social Media, reach out to Emma Watson and her 3 million followers
Now what should be the theme or thread running through the debate this year, how should you frame the debate, that’s easy
Vexatious claims of anti semitism are hate crimes and should be prosecuted
JC does not have an anti semitic bone in his body
This is the safest country in Europe for the Jewish Community thanks to people like Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour movement
Repeat ad nauseum, attack those who promote the witch hunt and call out the current leadership of the Labour party and his supporters
Good Luck
It’s worse than what Mike Cushman suggests, as under the Law of Return, children, grandchildren and spouses of Jews are eligible for Aliyah. So Keir Starmer himself might be deprived of British Citizenship if the Home Secretary wished it.
I much admire lovely and ultra-intelligent Tina but I support Mike Cushman in our discussion within JVL, of which I am a solidarity member.
It is appropriate that our British Jewish Socialists are central to concern about prospective oppressive legislation amidst widespread threats of again fashionable authoritarianism. Indeed, our leading members of JVL are in the centre of effective opposition to unfairness and repression of all sorts.
The Labour Party is not only ineffectual, it is now openly authoritarian, it is blatantly racist towards all minorities except zionists and it is oppressing its own members in a zombie drive to eradicate socialism and democracy.
I respectfully suggest the probably overriding concern about widespread climate change, which is being addressed by the establishment, inclusive of the Labour Party, with ignorance, ineffectualness and of course repression.
In reply to Tina – what the article is – I think – doing is akin to “stress testing” in Engineering mostly but can apply to other systems:
“a form of deliberately intense or thorough testing used to determine the stability of a given system, critical infrastructure or entity.”
Margaret West is right to point out to Tina that Mike’s article should be viewed as stress testing, and the interesting discussion which it has provoked suggests to me that the true number of those who are theoretically vulnerable to instant deportation far exceeds the figure of six million which has been mooted – you might well get to that number just by considering the families of those who have at least one Jewish or one Irish grandparent.
Taking into account the large number of citizens of European descent who also have a right to citizenship in a European country, I also seriously doubt that it is true that the law would primarily be applicable to non-white UK nationals; but of course that doesn’t alter the fact that it is undoubtedly primarily AIMED at non-white nationals at this point in time.
Perhaps a supreme irony in this totalitarian insanity is that membership of JVL might in theory save Mike from deportation from the UK. For an applicant may be denied Israeli citizenship if he or she is considered a threat to the security of the State of Israel…
But then again the Israelis might accept him as a citizen just so that they could lock him up.