ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The UK government is seeking new powers to make it legal to strip Britons with dual nationality of their citizenship without the need to inform them beforehand, with many warning of a two-tier citizenship with significant consequences for British citizens stranded in Syria.
Clause 9 of the UK’s new proposed Nationality and Borders Bill, which is currently moving towards its third reading in the British Parliament, would essentially exempt the need to give notice of the removal of citizenship unless “reasonably practical”, meaning that ministers would be able to strip British citizens of their citizenship without informing them beforehand.
Commenting on the clause (“Notice of decision to deprive a person of citizenship”), the British Home Office said, “British citizenship is a privilege, not a right. Deprivation of citizenship on conducive grounds is rightly reserved for those who pose a threat to the UK or whose conduct involves very high harm. The nationality and borders bill will amend the law so citizenship can be deprived where it is not practicable to give notice, for example if there is no way of communicating with the person.”
Last month, it was revealed that the UK repatriated three British children from a camp housing families suspected of being affiliated with the Islamic State (ISIS) group in northeastern Syria (Rojava), where an estimated 8,500 foreign nationals remain.
In 2013, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism found that “at least 43 people” had been stripped of their British citizenship for undefined terror related justifications, and there have been several high profile examples of British citizens in Syria having their citizenship revoked.
Earlier this year, the British-born ISIS member Shamima Begum lost the appeal to restore her citizenship after it was revoked in 2019, with the Home Office citing security concerns. Begum was 15-years old when she left London to join ISIS in Syria in 2015.
In May, Middle East Eye reported the case of a British man who was finally able to return to the UK after being stranded abroad for four years, after the government was found to have wrongly assessed that he was entitled to Bangladeshi citizenship.
To many, it appears the UK government is washing its hands of citizens in the region by revoking their citizenship, particularly as this proposed amendment was quietly added, and the government is facing accusations of creating an ill-considered two-tier citizenship whereby the stripping of one’s nationality can only be applied if they are “eligible” for the citizenship of another country.
There are several recent examples of Britons in al-Roj camp in Syria having their citizenship removed.
British MPs are continuing to consider the government’s immigration reform plans, which would also dramatically amend the current system of seeking asylum in the UK, seeing people who arrive through irregular means or without pre-authorisation imprisoned.
In her recent Conservative Party conference speech, the British Home Secretary Priti Patel stressed the intention of the government’s New Plan for Immigration to "provide sanctuary to those in need through safe and legal resettlement routes”, but the Bill makes no provision for replacing the EU’s Dublin III accords, and the number of other ways to “legally” arrive in the UK are few and far between.
On average, 5-10,000 refugees are selected by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to be resettled in the UK each year. In October, the UNHCR published their full legal opinion on the Bill, concluding that a policy based on claiming asylum in the first safe country reached would be unworkable, “adding more strain to developing countries”, and fundamentally at odds with the Government’s commitment to upholding the UK’s international obligations.
