To worry that I might lose my British citizenship one day because of the new law going through parliament?

[flashbac]

I was born here and so was one parent.

There is a Bill that has just been passed, while we were all distracted with shenanigans with parties and what not, that will allow citizenship to be revoked without notice.

I know the power to remove citizenship already exists but the without notice bit is quite scary. I assume that means someone could happily go about their business until they need to show right to be in the UK e.g new job or new rental and then poof, they can't access things and possibly get detained and then deported when they enquire about it and it's probably too late to contest it through the courts.

I know the responses will indicate how so many don't care, "don't do anything naughty then and they won't put you in the naughty bin ready to be turfed off to another land" but remember the right to protest, to give an example of how easy it will be to get on the wrong side of the authorities, will also be outlawed soon so anyone could be arrested, if the circumstances meant a person was driven to it, e.g you do a sit down protest outside a hospital because they covered up malpractice or, it's decided that a huge Amazon warehouse is built in the field behind your garden and you wanted to protest with your neighbours.

Lots of people will think this only affects 'foriners' so probably won't care. I think it's awful.

@PinkiOcelot

I did wonder what the point of publishing that video about the Christmas party was. I see it now. This is absolutely disgusting.

Me too.

The worst if this new law is the fact they don’t have to tell people about it so people wouod only learn they’ve lost their citizenship when coming BACK in the country.

Talk about being stranded in another country with no passport!
And no way to appeal because you can only do it ‘easily’ when on British soil.

And you dont even need to have another passport, just that to think there is every reason you can get another.
So someone who has never lived let’s say in Ireland , Syria or whatever could be ‘send back home’ to that country even if they have never set a foot there, have never the language or anything at all. They just need a parent/grand parent who is from there.
Or they might have just happen to have been born there - you know the expats who just happen to have spent their first 2 months if their life somewhere else.

It’s appalling but everyone is nicely distracted by the ‘parties’ of last year so not a word from most of the newspapers about it.

I'm honestly envious of the blissful ignorance and blind trust of some of these posters.

@MissCruellaDeVil

Where would they deport someone born in the U.K.? They wouldn't have citizenship anywhere else either...

See above - they can only do this if you have dual nationality.

@MissCruellaDeVil

Where would they deport someone born in the U.K.? They wouldn't have citizenship anywhere else either...

My two dcs are born here, they’ve never lived anywhere else than the U.K. or for that matter the town they were born in. They have dual citizenship. Like another 5.5 millions people they have the opportunity to get another citizenship and therefore can be stripped of the British citizenship if the Home Office decides to do so.

@MissCruellaDeVil They can only do this if you have dual citizenship. However this isn't just people who physically have two passports. The home office can say that eg you have a grandma from Ireland so you can go claim your citizenship there. You may have never even had an Irish passport or been there.

they can only do this if you have dual nationality.

It’s actually worse. They can do it if that person has the POSSIBILITY to get another citizenship. The person might never have asked for that citizenship

So on paper someone who has an Irish grand parent could be stripped from their British citizenship.
Or as someone has pointed out, they could strip Boris Johnson from his British citizenship because he is born in the USA so can, on paper, get the American citizenship instead.

X post @Meadowbreeze 😁😁

@MissCruellaDeVil forgot to add that quite a lot of people born here aren't eligible for British citizenship automatically. It is not the law of the land. If your parents weren't permanent residents 5 years prior your birth you're out of luck and can possibly try when you're older.

@lostforideas yup, and unless you have very specific documents that your grandparents country requires, you'll be nice and stateless. In most countries the paperwork required to apply for citizenship through ancestry is long and arduous.

@flashbac, ((hugs))

I worry too.
I worry for my two dual citizen children.
I worry about myself as an EU citizen.
It would even affect potential grand children just because they would have one grand parent who isn’t a British citizen. :(:(

I feel we are all on an éjectable seat and there are no certainty any of us will be able to live here anymore.

I can't believe some of the "well if you don't do anything wrong I'm sure that you won't have a problem". Looking at the Windrush scandal, possibly 15,000 were wrongly classified as illegal immigrants. Hundreds of people were illegally deported. Many lost jobs, homes, school places for kids etc.

Some other background
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/09/windrush-scandal-wrongly-designated-illegal-immigrants

@Lockdowninfinity The second most effected are the polish nationals, I'm sure they also feel like they don't belong and the great majority are white.
Whilst I don't for one second dismiss the struggles you've described, this bill will effect everyone who has or potentially has dual citizenship.

Mummyoflittledrafon hi, I was born in Britain, I have a British passport and grew up here so am 'naturally' British. As was shamima begum. Didn't help her because her parents were born in Pakistan. The bill makes it possible to revoke my British citizenship because another country offers me citizenship. As pp have said I'm a very dull law abiding officer worker, but what if I decide to join a protest and get arrested and they deem me a threat? Off I go. I wouldn't mind a nice holiday in South Africa but have children and a job here and nothing in South Africa.

@Ace56

Oh for goodness sake. This is being blown out of proportion. As PP have said, you’d need to commit a pretty serious crime in order for this to even be remotely considered, and even then it is heavily debated/brought to court/fought against etc (e.g. Shamima Begum). You’re not just going to be walking around Tesco, living a normal life, and have your citizenship stripped away from you.

@Ace56, honestly I think that unless you are one of those 5.5 millions people affected by that law, you have no idea.

Just like if you are not an EU citizen, you have no idea the effect Brexit has had on us and how we feel about living in the U.K.

You are looking at things from the confort of your own privilege. One where you know this will never happen to you. It’s easy to dismiss it saying it’s an over reaction, it will never happen etc…

We are looking at Windrush and how those people who had been in the U.K., working etc.. for 50+ years and they were treated like pariahs.people who were told to leave everything behind, all their family, children, grand children to ‘go back home’.

I look at that law and think that, in 5, 10 or whatever years time, one of my dcs will be stuck at the border unable to enter THEIR country without even knowing WHY (because they don’t need to tell you). Because they will caught in the middle of another Windrush.

It might look improbable to you. But you know what, I’m sure it looked improbable to all of those affected by Windrush too.

@Lockdowninfinity

Lots of talk about Irish heritage here. Let’s keep it real…..We all know this will only affect brown people. No change for the majority of brown people born here - almost all of my friends born here to immigrant parents in the 60s and 70s are already despairing about their retirement. They were raised by parents who dreamt of returning ‘home’. Many did; most didn’t. That generation are dying out now. The dream of ‘going back home’ offered some comfort during their years of trauma here. The racism their babies and grandbabies have endured as British born non-whites has resulted in a sense of not belonging in their own home (UK). It’s now dawning in many of these (now middle aged) babies that they don’t have a ‘home’ to dream about for retirement. British - but not accepted as such - however their parents birth countries are alien to them. Anyway. This bill just serves to remind them of this status…..but it’s not a surprise.

Yep.

It reinforced the idea that unless you have several generations of British ancestors, you are not really British.
And you dint have to be ‘brown’ for that. My own dcs were feeling like this before that law and they are white.

Where would they deport someone born in the U.K.? They wouldn't have citizenship anywhere else either...

But they might have the ability to have citizenship elsewhere.

For example, how many people have Irish Grandparents?

Some posters keep saying this will apply only to dual nationals (as if that isn't bad enough) but Shamima Begum wasn't a dual national as far as I recall. They said her mum was born in Bangladesh hence she could apply for citizenship there. Bangladesh said they won't accept her.

No government should have the right to revoke anyone’s citizenship. Much less our FPTP government’s which usually only have the backing of about 1/3 of the electorate.

I wrote to members of the House of Lords and at least one has written back so far. Email them now! Their addresses are on the House of Lords website. Email Tory Lords - they’ve no constituencies. Write to newspapers. Make some noise. Govt will bow to three things - Public pressure, parliamentary pressure and press paper. Write to the Tory Press. Individually we can’t fight this. But if we all do little things we can show them we care.

I think this thread has reminded me just how little the average Brit knows about their own immigration system. Eligibility for citizenship at birth, how dual citizenship works etc etc. Maybe they slide these crazy laws through knowing the average Joe won't bat an eye lid because it looks like a good thing when you add the word terrorism here and there 🤔

@Lockdowninfinity

Lots of talk about Irish heritage here. Let’s keep it real…..We all know this will only affect brown people. No change for the majority of brown people born here - almost all of my friends born here to immigrant parents in the 60s and 70s are already despairing about their retirement. They were raised by parents who dreamt of returning ‘home’. Many did; most didn’t. That generation are dying out now. The dream of ‘going back home’ offered some comfort during their years of trauma here. The racism their babies and grandbabies have endured as British born non-whites has resulted in a sense of not belonging in their own home (UK). It’s now dawning in many of these (now middle aged) babies that they don’t have a ‘home’ to dream about for retirement. British - but not accepted as such - however their parents birth countries are alien to them. Anyway. This bill just serves to remind them of this status…..but it’s not a surprise.

Bears repeating.

Astonishing the number of people, even on one so far small thread, who preface their remarks with:

“It’s only if …”

or

“It’s only those who …”

As if it’s nothing. As if the millions of people, like me, who now discover their citizenship has a different hue, just Do Not Matter.

Totally agree. I’ve been here since I was 6 and was naturalised sometime after. It’s outrageous. People should be furious and challenging but the circus distracts them and behind the scenes terrible things are happening .

Don’t see the issue. You aren’t going to have your citizenship revoked for a parking fine are you? The crime that would preceded revocation would be serious enough that you couldn’t accidentally do it, you’d have willing committed an incredibly serious offence.