The racialisation of British citizenship

Abstract

The history of British citizenship is a history of state racism – from the differential treatment of ‘non-patrial’ citizens who acquired citizenship through a colony rather than through British ancestry, which led to the ‘East African Asians’ scandal of 1968, and the quiet withdrawal of British citizenship from former colonial citizens when their countries became independent, which led to the Windrush scandal, through the dilution of the right of citizenship by birth in the UK (ius soli) in 1981, to current laws which apply the logic of deportation and exclusion to black and brown citizens. British citizens are divided into those claiming only British citizenship, who can never lose it whatever they do, and those who, although they may have been born here, have another citizenship and can lose British citizenship on the say-so of a minister. The latter group, with a second-class, disposable, contingent citizenship, are mostly from ethnic minorities – and the changes to citizenship law which have created these classes of citizenship were brought in to target British Muslims of South Asian and Middle Eastern heritage. While the government claims that only those whose actions pose grave threats to national security, or who have committed abhorrent crimes, will lose their citizenship, the division of citizens into those with secure and insecure status affects vastly more people.