Should the state be able to strip citizenship so easily?

摘要

I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be a to be a British citizen in light of the Shamima Begum case. The Bethnal Green 19-year-old, who hit the headlines four years ago when she ran off to join IS with her friends, has been stripped of British citizenship. Home secretary, Sajid Javid justified the decision on the grounds she was eligible for Bangladeshi citizenship through her mother, something now denied by the Bangladeshi authorities. This leaves the teenager stateless. No doubt Mr Javid hoped his stance would make him look tough on terrorism. Instead, the Home Office stands exposed as incompetent and, even worse, guilty of risible moral cowardice. In any meaningful sense, Begum is a British citizen, even if she despises what Britain stands for. She was born, raised and radicalised here. We need to 'own' that, no matter how unpalatable. Forget Ms Begum for a minute: do we really want the state to be able to rescind citizenship so easily? Can all immigrants and their children be so easily shorn of their British credentials because they have the possibility of citizenship elsewhere? Surely, a core tenet of citizenship accepts that even the most heinous transgressors stand equal in the face of their own country's laws.