CITIZENSHIP: FROM RIGHT TO PRIVILEGE mostly from ethnic minorities – and as this background paper shows, 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. And while the government seeks to reassure us that only those whose actions pose grave threats to national security, or who have committed abhorrent crimes, will lose their citizenship, and numbers remain small, the division of citizens into those with secure and insecure status affects vastly more people. Such divisions act as a constant reminder to minority ethnic citizens that they must watch their step, and reinforces racist messages about ‘undeserving’ racialised groups unworthy of being British. Introduction ‘Wouldn’t it /Be simpler … if the government /Dissolved the people and /Elected another?’ Bertolt Brecht 1 ‘There cannot be different grades of Britishness in the eyes of the law. You are either British, or you are not.’ Philip Hensher 2 We are taught to think of our citizenship as something completely reliable and enduring, a core part of who we are and something we generally take completely for granted. But government actions over the past few years have shaken that belief. We are now told that citizenship is ‘a privilege, not a right’. Successive legal changes have made it harder to acquire - but easier to lose, for certain groups of people – and in practice, those most affected by these changes are British Muslims, particularly of south Asian heritage. In 2021 as the Nationality and Borders Bill 2021-2 was going through parliament, the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) drew attention to the implications of its Clause 9, which meant citizenship could be revoked without those affected being notified. 3 The subsequent campaign against the clause has heightened public awareness of the injustice contained in the deprivation of citizenship powers. 1 2 3 ‘The Solution’, 1953. ‘It’s wrong to strip Abu Hamza of his citizenship’, Independent, 3 April 2003 (reissued 8 December 2013) https://irr.org.uk/article/removing-clause-9-and-beyond/ The IRR had been asked in 2021 to prepare a report on the deprivation of citizenship and the public sector equality duty as part of the appeal against the revocation of the citizenship of a number of young British Muslim women of South Asian heritage, including Shamima Begum, who had travelled to Syria, often as children to join ISIS. 3