CITIZENSHIP: FROM RIGHT TO PRIVILEGE in some cases their freedom and their country. Now, it was realised, this same logic, which is inherently expansive, is applied to British-born citizens too – and this drove public anger. In January 2022, the Lords threw the clause out – and some peers wanted to go further, tabling an amendment to remove all the powers to revoke citizenship that Parliament had given to ministers from 2002 onwards. The amendment wasn’t passed – but it showed the depth of feeling on the issue. As Conservative peer Lord Moylan said: ‘When something as important as nationality and national identity is treated by our own Government like a mere driving licence or library ticket that can be cancelled by administrative fiat, we are all the poorer.’9 In March 2022, the Commons reinstated Clause 9, but restricted no-notice deprivation to specified scenarios, i.e., where the information needed is not available; or if the minister reasonably thinks notice should not be given in the interests of: > > > > national security; investigating or prosecuting serious or organised crime; preventing or reducing a risk to someone’s safety; or diplomatic relations. It also agreed safeguards protecting appeal rights and allowing a measure of judicial oversight of decisions to deprive without notice, as well as periodic reviews of their use. But the fundamentally racist deprivation provisions remain, as do the provisions retrospectively validating unlawful deprivations made without notice, in section 10 of the Act. 2. A history of deprivation powers Lawyers, judges and philosophers agree that citizenship is a foundational status, conferring not only the all-important right of residence, but the right of belonging to a political community. Philosopher Hannah Arendt famously described citizenship as ‘the right to have rights’; human rights were, she pointed out, inaccessible to those without a political community (ie, a country of nationality) to enforce them.10 The US Supreme Court adopted Arendt’s formulation in Trop v Dulles, in which it said ‘[deprivation of citizenship means] the total destruction of the individual’s status in organized society. It is a form of punishment more primitive than torture’.11 9 HL Deb 27 January 2022, col. 508. 10 The origins of totalitarianism (1951), Chapter 9. 11 Trop v Dulles, US Supreme Court (1957) 356 US 86 (Chief Justice Warren). 6