The Guardian is amongst the entire media in reporting Sajid Javid's attempt to deny Shamima Begum her British citizenship, saying:
Bangladesh has rejected the British government's demand that the Isis runaway Shamima Begum go there instead of being taken back by the UK. “She is a British citizen by birth and never applied for dual nationality with Bangladesh,” said Shahriar Alam, the Bangladeshi foreign minister. “There is no question of her being allowed to enter into Bangladesh.” Sajid Javid, the British home secretary, has faced questions in the Commons as he pushes ahead with trying to deprive Begum of her citizenship.
I am not discussing the rights and wrongs of what Begum might or might not have done will be deleting comments on that issue. I am solely interested in this matter because of what it says about Javid's attitude to citizenship.
Javid is, of course, a product of the City, and I have little doubt that he has embraced its 'values'. There, and for the Tory party of which he is a part, citizenship is just a commodity. It can be traded for tax advantage, or to attract inward investment. It is something to be taken, or left, at will by those with options facilitated by the money available to them.
But this is not what citizenship is. If Javid understood that it is part of identity it would help. But he, like many of those with wealth, think such a notion absurd: they believe they exist beyond the reach of the nation state, and of course, therefore, its ability to tax.
Citizenship is, however, also much more than that. Citizenship is, of course, a matter of human rights. There is, although I have absolutely no doubt that Javid would deny it, a fundamental contract between the citizen and the state. The state affords the citizen protection, come what may. The citizen accepts the obligations to comply with its law in exchange. The wealthy try to opt out of this contract: the rest of us are dependent upon it. And what Javid is trying to do is to deny that it exists, contrary to international law. Begum has a right to citizenship, and he is denying it.
The issues at stake here are much higher than those regarding Begum. What is at stake is whether or not citizenship is an option, or not. I would argue that it is not. The state has a duty to do maintain it. Of course, that means the citizen has a duty to. Have no doubt that Javid's desire to break this relationship is cynical. He may not give a damn about Begum, but he does about the right of some to opt out of their obligations, and that is why he would like to break the citizenship relationship.
He has to lose.
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I tell you these Tories have got to go. One eminent lawyer on Radio 4 this morning questioned whether or not Javid had actually taken legal advice, and exonerated the HO legal team whom he said were top drawer.
Javid is making up ad hoc law. Not surprising when his boss and former HS ratified BREXIT all by herself.
As for Begum, she should be allowed back but I’d make it very clear that she will be watched closely for the rest of her life or at least until the UK stops joining with other rogue states to kill innocent Muslims the world over as we have been doing for far too long.
Unfortunately Savid Javid is using the Begum case for pure opportunism to appeal to the far right (who tragically seem to be growing in strength) for career advancement purposes (horror of horror of horrors next PM?). As yesterday’s Guardian report clearly shows striping a citizen of nationality and the citizen has not another nationality to adopt is a gross abuse of human rights and is forbidden under international law (are Tories the party of law and order?) Clearly when the case goes to court the government will be decisively defeated. Clearly the government’s policy of the”hostile environment” of the Windrush Scandal started under Teresa May as Home Secretary is still alive and well under Mr Javid as evidenced by the brutal and unjust attempts to deport of asylum seekers who have very strong cases to get leave to remain in the UK.
I can’t say I agree with removing someone’s citizenship on the basis that they have offended the state. If an offence has been committed, the law prescribes a response to that. I’m not a lawyer, but I’m not aware of any tariff in our legal system which allows for the punitive removal of someone’s citizenship. Take their passport from them, yes… but citizenship? That’s just crazy.
If the girl at the heart of it has committed an offence then she should answer for that offence in a court of law and suffer whatever consequences that follow. That might mean a life sentence for treason (no, we don’t have the death penalty for treason anymore!) but I can’t see any rationale for removing someone’s citizenship.
We don’t do that for other heinous criminals. People who steal, kill, revel in causing affray etc etc are all in their own way acting contrary to the public peace and “the way things are done around here”, but they don’t get booted out of the UK.
I fully understand the emotion behind the move, but I think letting that get in the way of the consistent and fair rule of law is a dangerous step.
I attended a lecture last evening in Glasgow on the origins of genocide and crimes against humanity
http://royalphil.org/Sessions/Session-217/Lecture%20217-9.pdf
at which the speaker, international lawyer Professor Philippe Sands and member of Matrix Chambers in London, in an aside during his lecture, described yesterday as a “very dark, dark day in the history of our country”.
I agree with him
Jack Jones, George Orwell, and Laurie Lee were three of several thousand British citizens, mostly of socialist sympathies, who went off to Spain to fight in the International Brigades for the republican cause in the Spanish Civil War. Their recruitment into the forces fighting the Fascist forces was not approved of by the Conservative British government of the time led by Prime Minister Baldwin; the official British policy was one of strict neutrality, in line with the general approach of appeasement to the rising threat of right wing authoritarianism through Europe. Despite this, as the Republican forces were driven back and defeated, Royal Navy ships were sent to the Spanish Mediterranean coast to evacuate British citizens who had been in the International Brigades contrary to the policies of the British government. It was recognised that the government had a duty to protect, evacuate, and repatriate those British citizens of whose actions it had not approved. Clearly, the stupid children who flocked to the Middle East to join in the fight for the essentially right wing Jihadist cause – a sort of religious fascism – cannot be accorded the same respect that we would give to the brave young men and women who joined the crusade against fascism in Europe in the ’30s; but they are British citizens, and for them the British government surely has a duty of care. This surely is expressed in the front inside cover a British passport (whethe blue or burgundy in colour): “Her Britannic Majesty’s Secretary of State requests and requires in the Name of Her Majestyto allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance and to afford the bearer such assistance and protection as may be necessary.” It is the duty od the Bitish government to repatriate Bagum.
It is by no means certain that the British government has any legal ability to remove citizenship from a natural-born UK citizen…..now, if she/he was a naturalised citizen, maybe. But even that is a power under regular review because of the rather excessive power is gives the government
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/518120/David_Anderson_QC_-_CITIZENSHIP_REMOVAL__web_.pdf
I knew of a very charismatic teacher who once worked in an Edinburgh school. She caught girls at a very impressionable age, captured their imaginations, some might say, she “brainwashed” them. She had some views that were fashionable in the 30’s amongst a certain set, but which we would probably now call dangerous, but haven’t disappeared. One of her “set” (the creme de la creme, she called them) went off to die in the Spanish Civil War.
At 15 years old, we can be very impressionable – I remember young people flocking to the evangelical Billy Graham – and easily led down paths which later we may regret. I suppose some might say “we reap what we sow” and certainly the hate-mongers of the gutter press have been true to form. But the UK Government and its spiteful, vicious politicians have also sown, by launching illegal wars, creating mayhem in other countries and stoking Islamophobia. We reap….
All I can say is that Javid and his mentor May make me ashamed to be called British. Yes, Begum may have to answer for any crimes she has committed, but more importantly, this young woman needs our protection, love and care, and not the vile posturing of imbeciles.
A slightly different take on the case by David Pratt in The National: https://www.thenational.scot/news/17451005.sajid-javids-tough-guy-routine-has-nothing-to-do-with-national-security/
“I knew of a very charismatic teacher who once worked in an Edinburgh school. She caught girls at a very impressionable age, captured their imaginations, some might say, she “brainwashed” them. She had some views that were fashionable in the 30’s amongst a certain set, but which we would probably now call dangerous, but haven’t disappeared.”
I can’t help thinking that the above seems curiously like a short précis of Murial Spark’s ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’?
Indeed it is, John. I thought the novel an interesting metaphor of how young (and not so young) people can be influenced by charismatic, persuasive individuals in our (and other) times. Usually, there is some kind of injustice unaddressed by “mainstream” politicians that give these people space to operate. The “war on terror” is one of the issues which has created that space.
“What is at stake is whether or not citizenship is an option, or not. I would argue that it is not”
You have said that you have Irish and UK passports. Does this mean you will be giving up one of them?
No
Why should I?
Rather ironically, because you have dual citizenship, your British citizenship can be legally revoked…
That would be ok
“You have said that you have Irish and UK passports. Does this mean you will be giving up one of them?”
What a fatuous question and totally unrelated to the very serious matter at issue, which is not about choosing to give up a passport but having it taked forcibly away.
That’s trolls for you