Report on United Kingdom The trend towards increasing complexity has continued under the Coalition government with the accretion of new layers of immigration rules piled on top of the existing structure, resulting in a byzantine edifice in which the true legal position is difficult even for experts to discover. This may not be entirely undesired. If the government wishes to reduce net migration to the tens of thousands, one way is to make the rules of entry inaccessible. While the process of naturalisation has largely escaped this recent new complexity, the requirement of establishing lawful stay through the qualifying period of residence, combined with exorbitant fees at every stage of the process, can only increases barriers to naturalisation. Meanwhile, the position of those who do become citizens is becoming more precarious particularly for those who are naturalised citizens or who have maintained links through citizenship to another country. The problem of making functional legislation is proving more difficult, the problem being exacerbated by the lack of any established and informed academic or professional debate about immigration and citizenship law. Despite recent attempts to raise the profile of the subject and make it more central to legal education, it is still often considered to be mainly a political or sociological issue, rather than a legal one where legal expertise might be central to explaining the current position or assessing potential reforms. The current story of confining the British to within the boundaries of the UK will also have to encompass treating Ireland as a properly foreign country. Though currently this may appear already to be largely the case,70 in practice the persistence of the Common Travel Area, by which the borders between the countries are open, had blurred the point, and many people also hold both Irish and British citizenships. There have been proposals, not adopted, to abolish the Common Travel Area,71 overturning centuries of historical connection. Something on which no change appears to be proposed is the power of Parliament to alter or withdraw what in most countries would be basic constitutional rights: this power is most graphically expressed in the fate of the Chagos Islanders, who many years after being expelled from their homes by subterfuge were told by the House of Lords that it was properly within Parliament’s power to remove their right of abode. Indeed, the trend under the current government is away from strengthened protection for individuals under the norms of international or European law. The broad political trajectory of UK citizenship law is relatively easy to see; historically-based anomalies are being removed and the system is being brought into line with a more classic mixed system of partial ius solis and ius sanguinis. Ambiguity as to status is being removed, with more migrants being either refused entry or treated as temporary visitors or guest workers. It remains to be seen however how easily the political impetus can be translated into legal provisions that work as intended, and what the side-effects may be. It may not be easy to limit interim and safety-net categories, or to limit human rights challenges to the deprivation of residence and other rights, especially where these are enjoyed by longer-term residents whose circumstances have changed unexpectedly. It may also be difficult to ensure that checks on the status of apparent foreigners do not affect settled and settling communities, to the detriment of British society as a whole. It was always likely that the dismantling of an empire would lead to profound changes in citizenship status and immigration laws. Many have argued however that this was achieved through the use of overt and covert racial categorisations and that immigration policy drove nationality law rather than the converse, which would seem both more logical and more principled. Stark race discrimination is now unacceptable, legally, socially and politically, and some of the worst excesses in nationality law have been ameliorated. However, new distinctions have emerged which are still 70 There have been separate citizenships since the declaration of Eire as an independent republic and the Ireland Act 1949 in the UK. 71 See Goldsmith 2008 and the original draft of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill. RSCAS/EUDO-CIT-CR 2014/1 - © 2014 Authors 29