Caroline Sawyer, Helena Wray residence to check that they are ‘appropriate’. They also support the ‘voluntary’ repatriation of immigrants aided by ‘generous financial incentives’.66 4.2 The trajectory of recent reform proposals In 2006, the Labour Government announced a review of the immigration system with the aim of consolidating legislation, including on citizenship. During the summer of 2007, it consulted on Simplifying Immigration Law, and the Green Paper (formal Parliamentary document proposing legislative reform) The Path to Citizenship, was published for consultation in the spring of 2008. The background was concern at the apparent failure of some communities of immigrant descent to integrate satisfactorily into mainstream society and the emergence of apparently ‘segregated communities’. Anxiety was heightened after the London bombings of 2005 perpetrated by British citizens, all educated and three out of four born in the UK. Nonetheless, critics widely challenged the presumptions upon which policy was based (see, for example, Finney and Simpson 2008). The White Paper was foreshadowed when Prime Minister Gordon Brown commissioned the former Attorney General Peter Goldsmith to write a paper on ‘citizenship’. The result, Citizenship: our Common Bond, was published in February 2008, together with the academic work commissioned by him for the paper. The scope of both the paper itself and the work commissioned for it tended to elide the two main political questions surrounding ‘citizenship’, namely to whom citizenship should be attributed – who is or should be British – and the issue of the meaning of Britishness.67 It may be for this reason that it does not give an impression of being a full or satisfactorily rigorous examination of any the issues, though it was widely reported in the media, with emphasis on his enthusiasm for citizenship ceremonies and civic participation. The Government Green Paper The Path to Citizenship proposed radical changes to both settlement and naturalisation.68 The subsequent Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 created a framework for reform including the novel concept of ‘active citizenship’ which would require those seeking naturalisation to undertake some form of community service outside the home. Indefinite leave to remain was to be replaced with ‘permanent residence’, which would generally take longer to acquire than citizenship, and ‘probationary citizenship’, which was not a form of citizenship but another immigration status. It appeared that the children of those on probationary citizenship would not be born British citizens in the UK and the number of children born either stateless or without British nationality despite their parents’ lengthy residence would have increased. The ethos behind The Path to Citizenship and the 2009 Act was an odd mixture in which naturalisation as an extension of immigration control competed with a desire to strengthen the bonds of citizenship. The result was a complex structure of doubtful legality and practicality. While the Act was passed, the sections relating to naturalisation were not implemented and were abandoned by the Coalition government who have, as earlier mentioned, focused their energies principally on blocking routes of entry and settlement. The underlying narrative and aims have 66 http://www.bnp.org.uk/policies/immigration 67 Although this does appear to take a very wide view of the remit put forward by Gordon Brown (at Appendix A of the paper), it is clear from his comments in a national newspaper (Goldsmith 2007) that Lord Goldsmith considered this appropriate and important: ‘We seem to take for granted what citizenship stands for. Our shared history may have held us together in the past but our society has changed a great deal. …’ 68 A government document issued as the first stage of formal consultation on proposed reforms. A White Paper generally follows, with a more formal statement of government policy. 26 RSCAS/EUDO-CIT-CR 2014/1 - © 2014 Authors