Nationality and Borders Bill

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Woodchopper
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Re: Nationality and Borders Bill

Post by Woodchopper » Wed Dec 01, 2021 1:57 pm

Fishnut wrote:
Wed Dec 01, 2021 11:28 am
The latest list of amendments has been released. There's a huge number - this tweet puts them at around 80. By my count there are two amendments which intend to make it illegal to claim asylum in the UK.
Thnaks for the update fishnut.

If people are tempted to assume that people can't be arrested for saving someone from drowning, that's what they did in Italy:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-deve ... -smuggling
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/s ... vini-italy

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Fishnut
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Re: Nationality and Borders Bill

Post by Fishnut » Fri Dec 03, 2021 6:32 pm

New Statesman has a piece about the creeping changes to the law that allow the government to strip people of their citizenship. These are the changes that I discussed here.

(Not so) quick timeline of legislation related to depriving British people of their citizenship:

British Nationality Act 1981
British nationals can be deprived of citizenship if they have shown themselves "by act or speech to be disloyal or disaffected towards Her Majesty", or "has, during any war in which Her Majesty was engaged, unlawfully traded or communicated with an enemy or been engaged in or associated with any business that was to his knowledge carried on in such a manner as to assist an enemy in that war" or "has, within the period of five years from the relevant date, been sentenced in any country to imprisonment for a term of not less than twelve months". Citizenship can only be deprived if keeping it has been determined to be "not conducive to the public good". The person must be given written notice of the reasons why they had been deprived of citizenship and must be given the right to appeal. The law did not require the person to have citizenship elsewhere except under the clause that allowed citizenship to be removed as a result of being sentenced to imprisonment. According to this letter (Q20, p9] - PDF), Home Office figures showed that between 1949 and 1973 10 people had been deprived of their British citizenship and rendered stateless. According to this government report (PDF), between 1973 and 2002 no-one had been denied citizenship.

Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002
This amended the 1981 act so that British nationals, whether born in the UK or elsewhere, could be deprived of citizenship if they had done anything "seriously prejudicial to the vital interests" of the UK or an overseas territory. They could not be made stateless and they must be given written notice of the reasons why they had been deprived of citizenship and given the right to appeal. What you have to do to be deprived of citizenship has changed. This act expanded who could be deprived of citizenship to those born in the UK as well as those born elsewhere but made it explicit that you could not be rendered stateless.

Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006
This amended the 1981 act so that British nationals could be deprived of citizenship if "the Secretary of State is satisfied that deprivation is conducive to the public good". Again, they could not be made stateless and they must be given written notice of the reasons why they had been deprived of citizenship and given the right to appeal. What you have to do to be deprived of citizenship has changed and was "met with criticism that the new wording reduced the threshold for making deprivation of citizenship orders" (source - PDF)

Immigration Act 2014
This amended the 1981 act so that foreign-born British nationals could be deprived of their 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". In other words, you no longer needed dual citizenship, just the prospect of being able to get citizenship elsewhere. As an aside this is also the act that removed protections for the Windrush generation. It also "took away rights to appeal against immigration refusals of non-asylum and non-human rights based claims" and "allowed the Home Office to remove people from the UK without giving notice of when their removal would occur" [source - PDF].

New Proposals
The Nationality and Borders Bill will remove the need to notify people under the following conditions (p12 - PDF),
(a) the Secretary of State does not have the information needed to be able to give notice under that subsection,
(b) it would for any other reason not be reasonably practicable to give notice under that subsection, or
(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.
These are incredibly broad conditions and easy to exploit. The Home Office claims that they are to allow citizenship to be removed from people while they are overseas in conflict zones where informing them is either impossible or would reveal intelligence sources.

The New Statesman article looked at census records and calculated that,
Almost half of all Asian British people in England and Wales are likely to be eligible (50 per cent) [to be deprived of citizenship], along with two in five black Britons (39 per cent).
Though it's worth pointing out that this is already the case, the new legislation would only make it so that the British government doesn't have to tell them their citizenship has been removed.

I wanted to end by looking at the figures for citizenship deprivation. Home Office figures aren't easy to come by, and some contradict themselves. But I've been able to put together the following:

Number of people deprived of citizenship:
2006 - 1 (Source 1) or "less than 5" (Source 2)
2007 - 1 (Source 1) or 0 (Source 2)
2008 - 0 (Source 1) - confirmed in Source 2
2009 - 0 (Source 1) or "less than 5" (Source 2)
2010 - 4 (Source 1) or "less than 5" (Source 2)
2011 - 6 (Source 2) - confirmed in Source 2
2012 - 6 (Source 2) - confirmed in Source 2
2013 - 18 (Source 2) - confirmed in source 2
2014 - 23 (Source 2) - confirmed in source 2, or 4 (Source 3)
2015 - 19 (Source 2) - confirmed in source 2, or 5 (Source 4)
2016 - 14 (Source 5)
2017 - 104 (Source 5)
2018 - 21 (Source 6)

I cannot find any figures after 2018 and all the whatdotheyknow.com FOI requests for data that I've found have been rejected. I think the discrepancy for 2014 and 2015 may be that they are including deprivations due to fraudulent applications in the larger figures but I can't be sure. I have made an FOI request of my own asking for a breakdown of figures to try and understand this difference.

I think it's important to realise just how unprecedented the government's use of the deprivation legislation has been. This is a graph of the data (I know it's bad form to provide data in both table and graph form in the same piece but I can't provide the sources so easily in the graph). Where there's conflicting data I've chosen the higher figures.
Deportations by year.jpg
Deportations by year.jpg (20.02 KiB) Viewed 2601 times
If you've read this far, well done. I'm sorry this is so long, but I thought providing the background on the legislative creep and its consequences were important to understanding just how dangerous this new bill is. And remember, this is just one new clause. The bill is massive and is giving the government sweeping powers that they will use. This bill is going to pass, there's no doubt about it, which means we have a very long fight on our hands to get the law changed, particularly as the bill will restrict what protesting can be done legally.

Source 1
Source 2
Source 3
Source 4
Source 5
Source 6
Source 7
it's okay to say "I don't know"

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Re: Nationality and Borders Bill

Post by nezumi » Sat Dec 04, 2021 1:13 pm

Holy f*. That's terrifying. Thanks for doing the work fishnut but I really, really wish I didn't know any of that. I'm just off to find a bucket of sand to stick me head in. :cry:
Non fui. Fui. Non sum. Non curo.

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Re: Nationality and Borders Bill

Post by raven » Sun Dec 05, 2021 10:52 pm

IvanV wrote:
Wed Dec 01, 2021 1:24 pm
Under clause (1) of this law, it looks like Spike Milligan would have been guilty of an offence and deported, during his early adulthood, before he became Irish in his mid-40s. After all, if you are not at a specific point in time acknowledged as British, or anything else, and have not explicitly applied for leave to remain, then it might well be said you are here illegally. That's in effect what happened to the deported Windrush people. Maybe this law would even legalise deporting the Windrush people, for having failed to assert their British nationality, as they could be said to be here illegally at some point after arriving if they failed to do that.

Milligan entered the country entirely legally at age 12, with his parents. They settled, as there was no legal impediment to them doing so. His parents had legal right of residence. He later left and re-entered the country several times while serving in the British army. But 30 years after first arriving, when Milligan first applied for a passport as an adult in his own name, he discovered that his situation did not make him automatically British. Rather he would have to apply for it and demonstrate he satisfied the criteria. He was born in India to a British mother and an Irish father. He was sufficiently offended by this unjust law, that he applied to be Irish instead, when he discovered that was a possibility.

That was in 1960 and rules have tightened since. After the Thatcher administration nationality reforms, many people applied to renew their British passport and were told that they no longer qualified automatically as British, and had to explicitly apply to be British to get a new passport. Even though they had previously been lawfully issued with a British passport. The situation was even worse for those status was similar, but had never previously applied for a passport, such as the Windrush people.

I almost wish I still had a Tory MP to write to, to complain about it. Not much point preaching to the converted, though.
That has only increased my admiraton for Mr Milligan.

MrRaven was in an almost identical situation, except his father was South African & his parents had split up when he and his mum came back here when he was a kid. Plus we'd actually got married and had a sprog before he needed a passport & realise he wasn't British. Thank f.ck he needed it for work and they sorted out his naturalisation because otherwise it would've been a nightmare. (Citizenship is complicated, and so was getting documents from Zimbabwe under Mugabe....)

It is absolutely chilling that Priti wants the power to strip people like MrRaven of citizenship.(I assume those of us who don't have any other nationalites are safe, but who knows....) I joke that he better not attend any protests or get any parking tickets, but it's not actually a joke. Who knows how future Home Secretaries might use that power.

(His sister was a babe in arms when they came back to the UK, so it's all she's known. Unluckily for her, citizenship at the time was only through the father, and they missed the Windrush deadline (before which Commonwealth citizens could settle here & be considered British) by a matter of 2/3 months. So, despite having a NI number, working, paying tax and voting all her life, she's not British. She has to apply (and pay for) a stamp in her passport to prove she can stay here every couple of years, and it's inevitably delayed, at which point her employers get antsy about having her on the books. She hasn't lost her job over it so far, but it's a huge pain. I absolutely loathe the hostile environment; it's an appalling policy.)

I will now take a deep breath and read Fishnut's post. (Thanks for the informative posts btw, Fishnut.)

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Re: Nationality and Borders Bill

Post by Sciolus » Mon Dec 06, 2021 8:53 am

raven wrote:
Sun Dec 05, 2021 10:52 pm
(I assume those of us who don't have any other nationalites are safe, but who knows....)
Absolutely not a correct assumption. This whole idea of stripping people of citizenship as a punishment was kicked off by the Shamima Begum case; she was always and has only ever been British. Stripping her of British citizenship therefore left her stateless, which is contrary to international law. Her case is complicated (and that one-sentence summary is probably wrong in important ways), but if you think the government gives a toss about anything other than headlines in the Mail you're wrong.

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Re: Nationality and Borders Bill

Post by IvanV » Mon Dec 06, 2021 1:52 pm

Ultimately this comes down to Britain trying to export people it sees as troublesome, by pretending they are someone else's problem. If they have been accepted as British, and haven't lied in a recent application, then really they are our problem now. Since some people are irrevocably British, should this irrevocable status be limited only to those who also qualify for, or even assert, other nationalities? Multiple nationality is hardly even an uncommon condition in an EU and in a Commonwealth that at various times have promoted mobility of labour, and in a labour market in which we still seek settlers to meet our labour shortages and enhance our wealth. Maybe new applicants who come from a condition of definitely having another nationality that they had, asserted and used definitively have before becoming British might require to go through a probationary period. But it should become irrevocable at some point. We shouldn't be deporting people to countries they barely know, for the satisfaction of bigots.
Sciolus wrote:
Mon Dec 06, 2021 8:53 am
raven wrote:
Sun Dec 05, 2021 10:52 pm
(I assume those of us who don't have any other nationalites are safe, but who knows....)
Absolutely not a correct assumption. This whole idea of stripping people of citizenship as a punishment was kicked off by the Shamima Begum case; she was always and has only ever been British. Stripping her of British citizenship therefore left her stateless, which is contrary to international law. Her case is complicated (and that one-sentence summary is probably wrong in important ways), but if you think the government gives a toss about anything other than headlines in the Mail you're wrong.
I think I read that the British govt has rendered about a dozen people stateless over the years, and far from all of them recently. Further it shows no qualms in removing a nationality from someone who has lived here for most or all of their life, simply because it can, and deporting them to a country they don't or barely know, and in some cases don't even speak the language.

In the Shamima Begum case, the government argued that she is Bangladeshi by right, and therefore it was not rendering her stateless. Bangladesh denies that such a person is Bangladeshi without explicitly applying for it, and they would certainly (now) refuse an application. It seems to me that it is hardly for a British court to assert they are wrong, as apparently they have done.

To my mind, for those who cannot demonstrate a specific nationality except through an explicit application process, they are not of that nationality until they have successfully sought to assert it. My daughter is (also) Czech because she has asserted it, has the passport to show for it, enabled her to go on holiday to Czech last summer. But many other children of mixed British/EU partnerships, or even mixed partnerships neither of which is British, born and brought up here, have not asserted their potential second and even third and more nationalities. And my daughter, who has lived her all her life, should nevertheless be seen as irrevocably British.

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Re: Nationality and Borders Bill

Post by IvanV » Wed Dec 08, 2021 12:58 pm

They were discussing it on the BBC late evening news a couple of days ago.

Sadly, the opposition spokesperson was Diane Abbott. She made some effective points for about 90 seconds. But then that stopped, confirming my expectations of her. My evil insides thought, maybe that's the maximum length of prepared statement she can recite. What she went onto was some incoherent ad hom concerning Priti Patel. So the discussion was entirely taken up by whether Diane Abbott was spreading false tales about PP. What a waste of time. This Bill is actually important, and needs effective advocacy against it, not arguments about how nasty is Priti Patel.

My first thought was, there's the new government-friendly BBC, putting up Diane Abbott as the opposition commentator to make it easy for the government. But maybe it wasn't the BBC's choice.

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Re: Nationality and Borders Bill

Post by raven » Wed Dec 08, 2021 11:39 pm

Sciolus wrote:
Mon Dec 06, 2021 8:53 am
raven wrote:
Sun Dec 05, 2021 10:52 pm
(I assume those of us who don't have any other nationalites are safe, but who knows....)
Absolutely not a correct assumption. This whole idea of stripping people of citizenship as a punishment was kicked off by the Shamima Begum case; she was always and has only ever been British.
The reasoned used with the Begum case -- the government's reasoning, I mean -- was that she was eligible for Bangladeshi citizenship by descent under Bangladeshi rules. Not that she had that citizenship. Just that she would be eligible for it. The mere possibility of obtaining it was apparently enough to justify that they weren't leaving her stateless.

The sharp-eyed will notice I referred to 'nationalities', not citizenship. They're not quite the same: citizenship is a narrower, more legal status. Nationality is a less formal thing, more in line with how people actually think of themselves & their heritage. Citizenship is way more complicated to assess because each country has their own rules, plus those rules differ in time.

To illustrate what I meant:

MrRaven is currently a British citizen. He may also be eligible for South African citizenship through his father, possibly Zimbabwean by virtue of being born there; he is not in possession of those citizenships currently but the Begum case illustrates that the possbility is enough to enable revoking his British citizenship.

I, however, am British alone. I was born here, my family is British at least 4 generations back, I have absolutely no links to other countries, not even Ireland. I assume that means -- unless there's a country where I'd be eligible for citizenship just because -- that my Britishness cannot be removed as even this shifty government couldn't deny they'd be making me stateless.

But as they are making a habit of ignoring international conventions on such things, who knows. I don't trust them as far as I could throw them.

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Re: Nationality and Borders Bill

Post by raven » Thu Dec 09, 2021 12:05 am

IvanV wrote:
Mon Dec 06, 2021 1:52 pm
To my mind, for those who cannot demonstrate a specific nationality except through an explicit application process, they are not of that nationality until they have successfully sought to assert it. My daughter is (also) Czech because she has asserted it, has the passport to show for it, enabled her to go on holiday to Czech last summer. But many other children of mixed British/EU partnerships, or even mixed partnerships neither of which is British, born and brought up here, have not asserted their potential second and even third and more nationalities. And my daughter, who has lived her all her life, should nevertheless be seen as irrevocably British.
Yes, it would be lovely if that's how it worked - if the rules took account of things like how long you've lived somewhere, how deep your ties to a country are, marriage, family connections, things like that - but they don't. And the hostile environment means there is absolutely no room for compassion on such grounds either.

Dual nationality is pretty common too. Boris was dual US/UK up until recently, but he's renounced so he's probably ok.(That's a whole other kettle of fish though, renouncing US citizenship costs & if you haven't filed tax returns, the IRS will want their pound of flesh....)

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Re: Nationality and Borders Bill

Post by Millennie Al » Thu Dec 09, 2021 12:30 am

raven wrote:
Wed Dec 08, 2021 11:39 pm
I, however, am British alone. I was born here, my family is British at least 4 generations back, I have absolutely no links to other countries, not even Ireland. I assume that means -- unless there's a country where I'd be eligible for citizenship just because -- that my Britishness cannot be removed as even this shifty government couldn't deny they'd be making me stateless.
Unfortunately, they can. The relevant legislation is the British Nationality Act 1981 section 40 (see https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1981/61/section/40 ) and the bit about not making you stateless is:
(4)The Secretary of State may not make an order under subsection (2) if he is satisfied that the order would make a person stateless.
so if the Secretary of State merely fails to investigate whether someone would be made stateless, then he can truthfully say he is not satisfied that revoking their citizenship would make them stateless, so there's no obstacle.

Except the practical obstacle that someone notified that they are about to lose their citizenship might show proof that this would make them stateless. Hence the need to remove the obligation for prior notification.

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Re: Nationality and Borders Bill

Post by raven » Thu Dec 09, 2021 1:08 am

IANAL, so I don't know how that clause played out in reality, but I suspect that at least back when that law was passed if a Home Secretary had tried to use failure to investigate as sufficent evidence to press ahead, it'd have been challengable in court.

Not so today, I'll grant you, given we've had more Acts passed since and the climate has chilled considerably.

What's more worrying is that if I remember right, Begum had to enter the UK to appeal the withdrawal of her citizenship, so all they had to do was deny her entry to stop her appealing. Now Priti wants to withdraw citizenship without notice and everyone is saying this is will prevent appeals, but it seems like she could already do that if someone was overseas. So, what, does she need these extra powers so she can secretly withdraw citizenship while someone is in the UK, wait for them to leave/go on holiday, and then say yah boo sucks you can't come back in 'cos we've revoked your passport? I can't quite work out what it'll give her.

It is all making me think that we're at the start of a long slippery slope into some dystopian SF future where climate change has wreaked havoc, there's too many people, not enough viable land, and Fortress Britian arbitarily expels citizens into the wastelands for dropping litter.

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Re: Nationality and Borders Bill

Post by temptar » Thu Dec 09, 2021 6:13 am

Yes, all that aside: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland ... -1.4750435

How does your government plan to police this absent border checks or impositions on businesses in Northern Ireland?

I can get on a plane from Luxembourg or Belgium to Switzerland without a border check.

You really are trying to turn yourselves into North Korea at this point.

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Re: Nationality and Borders Bill

Post by IvanV » Thu Dec 09, 2021 10:39 am

temptar wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 6:13 am
Yes, all that aside: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland ... -1.4750435

How does your government plan to police this absent border checks or impositions on businesses in Northern Ireland?
There has long been a fudge over the Republic/North border. To avoid a hard border, the UK and Ireland have a "common travel area". But that right of common travel exists for UK and Irish residents, not for anyone who just happens to be in one country or the other. Many other people can cross the border freely too, even before EU freedom of movement, as the UK and Ireland did not demand to reinspect the kind of people who just stamped in when first arriving at one or the other, as opposed to requiring a visa. But it has long been the case that there are some people who should not cross the border, even if there is no enforcement there.

This is especially the case for "visa nationals" who have to apply for an explicit visa, or entry clearance, before arriving in the UK or Ireland, as opposed to those nationals who can just arrive and be stamped in. Such visas or entry clearances are typically specific only to the UK or Ireland, not both. So if you enter one legally on such a visa, it does not permit you to cross the border. No one is stopping you crossing, but you might later come to the attention of the authorities and be prosecuted for wrongful entry. Further, if you have any kind of special entry permit, such as a student visa or work visa or marriage visa, it is important that you do enter the UK directly from somewhere other than Ireland, and vice versa, so that your entry permit is validated by border force. If you don't do that, you have entered the country illegally.

At the moment, there are relatively few people this conundrum applies to. Visa nationals are a tiny proportion of arrivals in Ireland. And not being in Schengen it does at least process EU arrivals. But now the UK is not in the EU, it can apparently apply to many more people, including it seems potentially all non-Irish EU citizens who can arrive freely in Ireland, and do so in large numbers.

Many legal requirements do not have a person on the spot enforcing them, but rather you might be prosecuted later if you are discovered. The law-abiding typically try not to break the law. Others will be more interested in what they can get away with.

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Re: Nationality and Borders Bill

Post by noggins » Thu Dec 09, 2021 11:04 am

1
There is no practical or moral reason for citizenship to be revocable.
If someone is that dangerous you want them locked up under your control - or dead.

2
A thought: if Priti Patel is eligble for Ugandan citizenship, a vindictive future government could strip her of citizenship - on the say so of the Home Secretary alone - while she is on holiday abroad.

Then - if not the case already - swiftly impose onerous visa restrictions on Ugandans - making her unable to legally return to the UK to appeal the decision.

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Re: Nationality and Borders Bill

Post by IvanV » Thu Dec 09, 2021 1:54 pm

raven wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 1:08 am
.... and everyone is saying this is will prevent appeals, but it seems like she could already do that if someone was overseas.
Mr Howard and Mr Blunkett each lost many cases finding that they had exceeded their powers as Home Secretary, in immigration cases. I found it a bit strange that the Home Secretary could lose case after case, finding they had exceeded their powers, and suffer no practical sanction for it. But it was nevertheless a bit inconvenient for them in terms of achieving their aims.

Mrs May did not suffer this problem, or not to anything like the same extent. What was the difference? Her main innovation appears to have been whipping people out of the country fast enough that they didn't have time to get a legal stay on it. By the time a lawyer could get a petition in front of a judge, they'd be already on a plane. And there's also hostile environment at the border keeping various people out. That meant such people were now much less likely to be able to contest the decision from inside the country. And it is indeed a lot harder once you have been removed. From the perspective of a Home Secretary who wishes to exceed their powers to remove people, or prevent them entering, putting people in a location where it is difficult for them to contest the decision is a clever trick.

I understand a few cases from Mrs May's time as Home Sec are slowly winding their way through the courts, and do not show her in a good light. But, like her predecessors, won't actually result in any personal sanction against her. Her political career is pretty much over anyway. She doesn't care any more, and history is not going to remember her kindly in any case. And these cases are unlikely to act as any kind of a stay on the behaviour of subsequent Home Secretaries.

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Re: Nationality and Borders Bill

Post by plodder » Thu Dec 09, 2021 2:57 pm

I used to know a lawyer who did work for the Home office on immigration. He was a) a total weasel and b) loaded.

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Re: Nationality and Borders Bill

Post by Sciolus » Thu Dec 09, 2021 3:57 pm

IvanV wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 1:54 pm
And these cases are unlikely to act as any kind of a stay on the behaviour of subsequent Home Secretaries.
Especially if this story in the Times is even half true. The gist seems to be that they want to introduce a process that will allow the Government (armed with its massive majority) to simply get parliament to rubber-stamp a decision that overturns any judicial findings against the Government, retrospectively changing the law to make whatever they did magically legal.

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Re: Nationality and Borders Bill

Post by Imrael » Thu Dec 09, 2021 7:44 pm

Boris was dual US/UK up until recently,
I did have the less-than-happy thought that being born in the US Boris might be eligible to run for president.

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Re: Nationality and Borders Bill

Post by nekomatic » Thu Dec 09, 2021 7:58 pm

raven wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 1:08 am
It is all making me think that we're at the start of a long slippery slope into some dystopian SF future where climate change has wreaked havoc, there's too many people, not enough viable land, and Fortress Britian arbitarily expels citizens into the wastelands for dropping litter.
I can assure you that this is not correct.




We’re not at the start.
Move-a… side, and let the mango through… let the mango through

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Re: Nationality and Borders Bill

Post by bjn » Thu Dec 09, 2021 8:04 pm

Judge Dredd was prescient then.

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Re: Nationality and Borders Bill

Post by Fishnut » Thu Dec 09, 2021 8:27 pm

The Bill has passed in the House of Commons, 298 to 231. The Tories and DUP, plus one independent, voted for it. Everyone else voted against.

Now it's off to the House of Lords.

Sciolus wrote:
Mon Dec 06, 2021 8:53 am
raven wrote:
Sun Dec 05, 2021 10:52 pm
(I assume those of us who don't have any other nationalites are safe, but who knows....)
Absolutely not a correct assumption. This whole idea of stripping people of citizenship as a punishment was kicked off by the Shamima Begum case; she was always and has only ever been British. Stripping her of British citizenship therefore left her stateless, which is contrary to international law. Her case is complicated (and that one-sentence summary is probably wrong in important ways), but if you think the government gives a toss about anything other than headlines in the Mail you're wrong.
Regarding the discussion about depriving people of citizenship: to clarify, the government has been able to strip people of their citizenship even if they don't have dual citizenship elsewhere since the passage of the Immigration Act 2014. Shamima Begum was just the most high-profile example of it happening. I don't know how many other people this has happened to as the government is terrible at publishing figures. She may be the only one, but I doubt it.

The Nationality and Borders Bill just lets the government remove your citizenship without telling you. While the focus has, for fairly obvious reasons, been on black and Asian Brits who are made vulnerable by this legislation, there are many other people who are vulnerable. Anyone who is eligible for citizenship elsewhere is exposed by this clause. All those people cheerily celebrating their ability to get Irish passports, for example. And they have been since 2015. The only difference is now you don't have to get a letter from the government telling you you're no longer British.
it's okay to say "I don't know"

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Re: Nationality and Borders Bill

Post by Millennie Al » Fri Dec 10, 2021 1:55 am

raven wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 1:08 am
So, what, does she need these extra powers so she can secretly withdraw citizenship while someone is in the UK, wait for them to leave/go on holiday, and then say yah boo sucks you can't come back in 'cos we've revoked your passport? I can't quite work out what it'll give her.
The new playbook is:
  1. Pick target
  2. Locate target (in UK)
  3. Revoke target's citizenship
  4. Seize target - easy since they get no warning
  5. Deport target, ensuring they are kept in custody at all times with no access to a lawyer
Previously, before the target's citizenship can be revoked, since they have to be warned, they get on the phone to a lawyer who rushes off to court and gets an injunction preventing deportation pending proceedings to challenge the revocaton. And the target cannot be detained to prevent this as at that point they're still legally in the country. With the new scheme, at the moment their citizenship is revoked, they are illegally in the country and subject to arrest and detention.

raven
Catbabel
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Re: Nationality and Borders Bill

Post by raven » Fri Dec 10, 2021 5:54 pm

That's grim. Imagine if they'd operated like that all along, everyone caught up in the Windrush mess would've be gone.

Anyhow, petition to remove Clause 9 from the Bill so Priti can't do that. (Sent to me this morning by my eldest, whose heart is definitely in the right place bless him.)

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/601583

User avatar
Fishnut
After Pie
Posts: 2447
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Location: UK

Re: Nationality and Borders Bill

Post by Fishnut » Sun Jan 16, 2022 6:00 pm

An example of the nightmare that removing citizenship from people without dual citizenship causes,

A 40 year old British man, referred to as E3 in documents, who was born in London, married a woman in Bangladesh in 2013. They had a daughter the year later. He didn't earn enough to be able to sponsor her to join him in the UK so worked in the UK and sent money to his family. He travelled to Bangladesh for the birth of his second daughter in April 2017.
On 3 June 2017, a deprivation of citizenship notice was sent to his mother’s London address – the day before E3 was due to return home. The Home Office followed it up with a call to his mother informing her that E3 would not be able to return to the UK...

According to the Home Office’s deprivation order, the Briton was “an Islamist extremist who had previously sought to travel abroad to participate in terrorism-related activity” and that he posed a threat to national security.

Although the UK government has reinstated his citizenship, his lawyers say they have received no explanation or any specific details to support the claims. E3 has never been charged with any criminal offence in the UK or elsewhere.

E3 told the Observer: “The allegation against me is so vague that it even suggests that I only tried to travel to some unknown destination to take part in an unspecified activity related to terrorism.
He was never arrested or even interviewed by British authorities despite being involved in activities so seriously harmful to the UK's interests that he was deprived of his citizenship.
E3’s British citizenship was restored following a judgment that he had effectively been left stateless because he could not have Bangladeshi citizenship like his parents: he forfeited that right by not claiming it by the age of 21.
He had a third daughter while stateless and as a result this daughter is still being denied British citizenship, despite his having been restored. He's also still unable to bring his family to the UK because of the discriminatory earning requirements.

Expect many more cases like this when this Bill passes, though with people only finding out they've had their citizenship removed when they try to board their plane home.
it's okay to say "I don't know"

tom p
After Pie
Posts: 1876
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Location: the low countries

Re: Nationality and Borders Bill

Post by tom p » Mon Jan 17, 2022 8:34 am

Fishnut wrote:
Sun Jan 16, 2022 6:00 pm
An example of the nightmare that removing citizenship from people without dual citizenship causes,

A 40 year old British man, referred to as E3 in documents, who was born in London, married a woman in Bangladesh in 2013. They had a daughter the year later. He didn't earn enough to be able to sponsor her to join him in the UK so worked in the UK and sent money to his family. He travelled to Bangladesh for the birth of his second daughter in April 2017.
On 3 June 2017, a deprivation of citizenship notice was sent to his mother’s London address – the day before E3 was due to return home. The Home Office followed it up with a call to his mother informing her that E3 would not be able to return to the UK...

According to the Home Office’s deprivation order, the Briton was “an Islamist extremist who had previously sought to travel abroad to participate in terrorism-related activity” and that he posed a threat to national security.

Although the UK government has reinstated his citizenship, his lawyers say they have received no explanation or any specific details to support the claims. E3 has never been charged with any criminal offence in the UK or elsewhere.

E3 told the Observer: “The allegation against me is so vague that it even suggests that I only tried to travel to some unknown destination to take part in an unspecified activity related to terrorism.
He was never arrested or even interviewed by British authorities despite being involved in activities so seriously harmful to the UK's interests that he was deprived of his citizenship.
E3’s British citizenship was restored following a judgment that he had effectively been left stateless because he could not have Bangladeshi citizenship like his parents: he forfeited that right by not claiming it by the age of 21.
He had a third daughter while stateless and as a result this daughter is still being denied British citizenship, despite his having been restored. He's also still unable to bring his family to the UK because of the discriminatory earning requirements.

Expect many more cases like this when this Bill passes, though with people only finding out they've had their citizenship removed when they try to board their plane home.
I rather hope that, if this bill passes in its current form, any future home secretary uses it to remove citizenship from everyone who voted for it, and only for those people (i.e. all the current tory MPs).

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