Azaad Sadiq
Last February saw two developments that may initially appear unrelated from each other, but whose connection becomes more apparent upon closer examination. Shamima Begum lost the first stage of her appeal against the Home Office’s decision to strip her of British citizenship on the 7th, and days later, a charter flight landed in Jamaica with 17 deported men (many to-be-deportees were removed from the plane after an emergency ruling from the Court of Appeal). In both cases, the individuals deprived of their citizenship have been widely condemned – Begum, of course, having earned her notoriety as an Islamic State recruit, and the deportees having been convicted for various criminal offences. Yet the abuses of state power should not be justified in any circumstances, and the Home Office’s actions display a worrying disregard for human rights.
International law holds that states cannot deprive their citizens of their status if the withdrawal of their citizenship would render them stateless. When initially revoking Begum’s citizenship last year, the Home Office’s lawyers cited her potential path towards Bangladeshi citizenship (Begum’s family are of Bangladeshi heritage) as a protection against vulnerability to statelessness. However, Begum herself had never held Bangladeshi citizenship, and the Bangladeshi government has made it clear that she would not be welcome in Bangladesh. Despite what the Home Office may claim, their actions have left Begum stateless, and in violation of the UK’s obligations to adhere to the norms of international law.
While those being deported to Jamaica do not face the risk of statelessness, their prolonged punishment also stands at odds with established norms of justice. Their deportation has been justified on the grounds that they are convicted criminals. Usually, when criminals have completed their sentences, as these men had, their debt to society is considered paid and they are reintegrated into society. For the men being deported to Jamaica, such norms seem not to apply. With the government parading the rhetoric that all of the men being flown to Jamaica were hardened criminals, it speaks to the dehumanising approach favoured by the government when it comes to immigration in general.
It is easy to dismiss the plight of these individuals as being self-induced when wide swathes of the press and public have done exactly that. While those at the heart of these situations are certainly not angels, such demonisation has a proven historical record of manifesting into something far more dangerous. Between 2018 and 2019, in the time period in which Begum’s case became widely known, 3530 hate crimes against Muslims were recorded in England and Wales. Of course, Islamophobia has been a problem in British society long before Begum was stripped of her citizenship, but it is easy to observe the link between her notoriety and the exponential rise in Islamophobic attacks, which, at their worst, have manifested into the atrocities seen in in other countries with attacks such as the Christchurch Mosque massacre. Likewise, the wrongful deportations of black Britons to the Caribbean that were at the heart of the Windrush scandal have continued even though the Windrush Lessons Learnt review has yet to published (against the advice of opposition politicians, academics and pressure groups). The government’s lack of care for the substantive effect that deportation has not only on those being deported, but the families they leave behind as well, is clear in its insistence on continuing with the Windrush deportations.
These incidents demonstrate the human cost of a wider immigration policy that is built upon political expediency rather than human rights. Migrants have been routinely attacked in the UK, with the Home Office openly flaunting its ambition to create a “hostile environment” under Theresa May’s tenure there. Those who defend migration tend to do so on the grounds of economic necessity, differentiating between “good” and “bad” immigrants. This kind of binary reductionism transforms human beings into commodities, mere means to an end rather than ends in themselves, whose status is dependent on how favourably they are viewed by wider society. A toxic coalition of government policies, profit-chasing newspapers and ordinary prejudice is to blame for the creation of a scenario in which someone’s citizenship can be revoked if a minister wills it, and in which they are likely to be heralded rather than condemned for their overreach of state power. Rather than trying to understand why Britons are being drawn into the embrace of terrorists and criminal gangs, we bin commodities that have expired in their purpose of serving as labour to fuel the economy. The racist overtones of both Begum’s case and the deportations cannot be ignored either. It is unlikely that white immigrants who are dual citizens of Australia would face the same treatment.
While the human cost has been felt acutely by those who have fallen victim to the conduct of the Home Office’s, the political and legal ramifications of its decisions have an equally if not more concerning impact. Currently, citizenship can be revoked under the British Nationality Act, which provides such an action with statutory legitimacy. This Act carries worrying implications: Since the UK lacks a codified constitution, Britons who face having their citizenship revoked cannot rely upon specific protections against it. Meanwhile, parliament is considered the ultimate source of authority, and the courts cannot overturn their will. Since the British Nationality Act, as a piece of legislation, is an expression of parliament’s will, only parliament itself can overturn it, and given its current makeup following the general election, that remains unlikely. Thus, the revocation of citizenship in this fashion, despite its concerning implications for the former citizen’s rights, is considered legal. Moreover, given the reliance upon precedent within the legal system, the Home Office’s conduct has established a pattern through which future cases can be determined.
Worryingly, these developments have taken place in a context of the executive government trying to impose its own will upon the judiciary, concerns regarding the rule of law notwithstanding. In fact, during a parliamentary debate concerning the deportations, one Conservative MP affirmed that British citizenship was a privilege rather than a right. That MP, Suella Braverman, was appointed Attorney General in the recent cabinet reshuffle, and is known for her attacks on judicial review. If the Attorney General, whose job is to advise the government on the legality of its conduct, is critical of the chief route used to curb the excesses of state power, then they have given a green light to the Home Office to continue acting as they wish.
Those who find concerns over the Home Office’s conduct to be alarmist will argue that the conditions of the aforementioned cases are exceptional, and thus not relevant to those vulnerable to revocation of citizenship and deportation, so long as they follow the law. However, once a precedent has been set, and with a government hostile to curbs on its power, it is only a while before a slippery slope sets in.
Works Cited
Shamima Begum (Preliminary Issue : Substansive) [2020] (Special Immigrations Appeals Commission).
Malik, K. (2020). Deportations to Jamaica, the Shamima Begum case and Windrush betray a woeful regard for the notion of citizenship. The Guardian.
Gallelli, F. (2019). Why Depriving Shamima Begum of her UK Citizenship Breaches International Law. [Blog] Oxford Human Rights Hub. Available at: http://ohrh.law.ox.ac.uk/why-depriving-shamima-begum-of-her-uk-citizenship-breaches-international-law/
BBC News. (2019). IS bride ‘is not Bangladeshi citizen’. [online] Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47312207 [Accessed 21 Feb. 2019].
Home Office (2019). Hate Crime, England and Wales, 2018/19. London: Gov.uk, p.17.
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