Caroline Sawyer, Helena Wray 4. Current political debates and reforms Although the current changes to citizenship and related laws mentioned above are the subject of formal political debates and legislation, these have often been overshadowed and obscured in the media by a broader debate over the meaning of ‘belonging’ and ‘citizenship’ in a modern diverse and, as the Scottish referendum demonstrated, fractured nation. At the same time, the departure of some young people to fight in Syria has recently triggered a much more specific debate about the circumstances in which the rights associated with citizenship, notably the right to enter one’s own country, may be abrogated. Unfortunately, this debate has been conducted with little regard to the responsibilities of states towards their own citizens and towards other nations where these supposedly dangerous individuals may be stranded. 4.1 Political parties and citizenship policy The major parties in Britain are the Labour and Conservative Parties, with the Liberal Democrats as a smaller third party. After the 2010 election, in which neither of the two major parties achieved an overall majority, the Liberal Democrats formed a Coalition government with the Conservatives. However, both the home affairs and immigration ministerial posts are held by Conservatives and Conservative policy has been dominant on these issues. There are also smaller parties who, under the UK’s first-past-the–post voting system do not have significant parliamentary representation. These include the Green Party, who have a single MP, and, more recently, the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) who have recently won two by-elections caused by the defection of Conservative MPs to UKIP and whose anti-European and antiimmigration policies are beginning to wield considerable influence on the policies of the mainstream parties, particularly but not only the Conservatives. There has been considerable devolution of power from the central UK at Westminster to Scottish and Welsh authorities, especially the former; although at present citizenship policy is not devolved, In 2005, the Scottish National Party policy campaigned in the General Election for a return to ius soli in Scotland as part of a new Scottish constitution on independence (SNP 2005: 29) but this commitment did not appear in the guide to an independent Scotland published by the Scottish government for the independence referendum published in 2013 (see Ryan 2014 for a discussion). The referendum, which was held in September 2014, resulted in rejection of independence by a narrow margin. As a result, Scotland has been promised the devolution of more power but not, so far, over immigration and citizenship Leaving aside the current Coalition government, power in Britain overall has been held by either Labour or Conservative governments for many decades and, as Dummett points out: ‘Policy on nationality has followed a more or less continuous line regardless of which party has been in power’ (Dummett 2005: 576). The end of Empire led to a shedding not only of political power in the colonies and overseas territories (complicated by a desire to retain economically useful links)65 but also of responsibility for their people. The major structural changes in British citizenship law were implemented by Conservative governments: the creation of the quasi-nationality status of ‘patrial’ in the Immigration Act 1971 and the loss of ius soli and the creation of a hierarchy of citizenship statuses in which only the most privileged had the right to live in the UK in the British Nationality Act 1981. However, the Labour government laid the way through the Commonwealth 65 Hong Kong remains an important seat of international trade; the Falkland Islands may prove to be important in laying claim to oil or minerals in the Antarctic region. 24 RSCAS/EUDO-CIT-CR 2014/1 - © 2014 Authors