Reasserting Rights to British Citizenship Through Registration The Act made profound changes to British nationality law. One of these was to introduce ‘British citizenship’, a category of British nationality that replaced the category of ‘citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies’ (sometimes referred to as CUCK). This constituted the final resting point in British nationality law of the various legislative devices by which the British government had sought to curtail the entry to the UK of black and Asian British subjects from the Commonwealth.The Act was introduced following Green and White papers,7 each of which had proposed ending ius soli (‘right of soil) – the principle whereby birth on the territory would in and of itself confer nationality. Consideration was also given to ius sanguinis (right of blood), by which a person acquires nationality through her or his parent. In passing the Act, Parliament decided that neither of these principles would be an adequate foundation for conferring British citizenship. The intention was to adopt ‘connection’ as the basic principle.8 Doing so required Parliament to specify in the Act what would constitute the required connection since a mere statement of this principle – unlike ius soli – is insufficient to reveal its meaning and application. A starting point for connection Introducing a new nationality required addressing two distinct groups of people. Firstly, the Act needed to address who among the then current generation were to be regarded as possessing the necessary connection. The answer to this begins with s 11(1) of the Act, which provides that all citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies, who had the right of abode at the Act’s commencement, would become British citizens at that time. As regards the living, therefore, the Act took patriality – a concept introduced on 1 January 1973 by the Immigration Act 1971 to restrict the category of British nationals having the unfettered right of entry and stay in the UK (the right of abode) – as its starting point for connection. This reflected the express purpose pursued by successive administrations to restrict the entry of black and Asian British nationals to the UK. The introduction of British citizenship (and the ending of citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies) formalised the position created by the 1971 Act in British nationality law. It removed the inequality among citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies, whereby some were free to go to and from, and stay in, the UK and some were not. However, it did so by depriving those, who were not so free, from the citizenship they had formerly held; and among the people so deprived were many people who had long since settled in the UK. The second group of people to be addressed were future generations. As regards who among those yet to be born were to be regarded as possessing the necessary connection, the Act takes separate starting points for those born in, and those born outside, the UK. For people born in the UK, s 1(1) provides for British citizenship to be acquired at birth if one or other parent is a British citizen or settled in the UK at the time of a child’s birth.9 The purpose of this starting point for people born in the UK was explained by Mr Timothy Raison, the Home Office Minister of State, during the passage of the Act: ‘The question must be faced as to what rational reason there is for the children of people who are here purely temporarily or, for that matter, illegally, expecting to have the right 7 8 9 The White Paper, British Nationality Law: Outline of Proposed Legislation, July 1980, Cmnd 7987 had declared at para 37: ‘British Citizenship will be the status of people closely connected with the United Kingdom.’ See eg Hansard HC, 3 June 1981: Cols 979–980 per Mr Timothy Raison, Minister of State, Home Office. Section 50(2)-(4) defines what is meant by ‘settled’. Essentially, a person is settled in the UK if this is her, his or their place of ordinary residence and there is no restriction on how long she, he or they may stay. 141