MPs back Government bid to strip citizenship from ‘extremists' during appeals

South Wales Guardian

18 hours ago

Security minister Dan Jarvis described 'keeping our country safe' as an 'awesome task' as he called on MPs to support the Deprivation of Citizenship Orders (Effect during Appeal) Bill.
If the proposal clears Parliament, alleged extremists who lose their British citizenship but win an appeal against the decision will not have it reinstated before the Home Office has exhausted all avenues for appeal.
Mr Jarvis told the Commons: 'Of all the duties of Government, none matters more than keeping our country safe.
'It is an awesome task, and one to which we attach the utmost significance as this House and the public would expect. For people to flourish they must have confidence that they are safe as they go about their lives.
'For a society to excel, its values must be protected from harm and its laws upheld.'
The minister later said: 'This Bill will protect the UK from people who pose a threat to our national security by preventing those who've been deprived of British citizenship and are overseas from returning until all appeals have been determined.'
He added that where the Home Office is pursuing a person through the appeals process, the alleged extremist would be unable to renounce any other nationalities they might have until the Government runs out of road.
Under existing laws, a person who wins an appeal could be released from immigration detention or returned to the UK while the Home Office considers further action.
Mr Jarvis warned alleged extremists can renounce other nationalities and put 'themselves in a position whereby a deprivation order would render them stateless', limiting the UK Government's powers.
He has received support from the Conservative frontbench, when Katie Lam said from the despatch box: 'Allowing potentially dangerous individuals to retain their citizenship while appeals are ongoing is absurd.
'This is not a power exercised lightly by any government, and the idea that dangerous people might escape accountability by exploiting procedure is frightening.'
But Conservative former Home Office minister Kit Malthouse warned that the Bill appeared to 'breach a fundamental tenet', by turning the idea of 'innocent until proven guilty' on its head.
Mr Malthouse said: 'If I'm accused of a crime and I am found innocent, and the prosecutors decide to appeal my conviction, I remain innocent – until that appeal is heard and decided against me.
'And if it's appealed beyond that, I remain innocent then still.'
Turning to the wider deprivation of citizenship orders, which saw an average of 12 people a year lose their rights to a British passport on the grounds it was 'conducive to the public good' between 2018 and 2023, Mr Malthouse told MPs the system had 'created two classes of citizen in this country'.
Shamima Begum, who travelled aged 15 from Bethnal Green, London, to territory held by the so-called Islamic State group a decade ago, is a well known example of the state's use of its powers.
She was 'married off' to an IS fighter and was stripped of her British citizenship in February 2019.
Mr Malthouse said he was a 'freeborn Englishman of two English parents going back I don't know how many years' with 'no claim on any other citizenship anywhere else'.
He continued: 'It is my absolute, undeniable, unequivocal right to have citizenship in this country and it cannot be removed from me by any means whatsoever.
'That is not true of my children – I'm married to a Canadian citizen. They have a claim on Canadian citizenship. If the Home Secretary so decides, they can have their citizenship removed.
'That is true of every Jewish citizen of the United Kingdom who has a right to citizenship in Israel. There will be millions of British people of south Asian origin who feel that they have a second-class citizenship.
'This law only applies to certain of our citizens.'
Bell Ribeiro-Addy said: 'I do not believe that citizenship is a privilege. I actually believe that it's a right.'
The Labour MP for Clapham and Brixton Hill added: 'I want to understand why if somebody was such a huge threat to this country, we could not deal with them under other pieces of legislation.'
She warned of a 'sense of nervousness amongst many communities when any legislation that touches and concerns citizenship is brought to this House', and said orders 'disproportionately' affect 'people of colour, or British-born or long-settled individuals whose heritage or ancestral links are outside of Europe'.
Backing the Bill, Labour MP for Makerfield Josh Simons said that 'high streets full of vape shops, dog muck and smashed glass matter so much' as a 'visible and constant reminder that others seem not to feel they belong'.
He described citizenship as 'belonging on a bigger scale – a larger us' and called for 'a modern citizenship regime – reform the ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights) and judicial review, establish digital ID or, for that matter, radically reform the British state'.
Having backed the Bill at second reading, MPs will further scrutinise it in the Commons at a later date.
The Bill does not change the reasons why a person could be deprived of their British status, nor their rights to an appeal.