Stripping Shamima Begum's citizenship is the tip of the iceberg

In February 2015, Shamima Begum, a British citizen born and raised in London, left Bethnal Green to join the Islamic State in Syria.

Four years later, in February 2019, Shamima found herself splashed across the media once more, nine months pregnant with her third child and speaking about her hopes to return to the UK. This interview charged dialogue surrounding citizenship laws in the UK, with the debate quickly turning toxic.

Three days later, Shamima Begum gave birth. Sajid Javid, the foreign secretary, made the decision to strip Shamima of her citizenship the following day, claiming she had rights to citizenship in Bangladesh due to her heritage. 

A few weeks ago, Shamima Begum lost the first stage of her appeal against the order to strip her of her British citizenship. 

To understand this racially-charged decision, we must first look at its historic use. Up until 2010, the stripping of citizenship was used almost exclusively as additional sanctions on serious criminals and only a handful of times. However, in the past decade of Conservative rule, there has been a sharp and sudden increase in this number.

There are four reasons for enforcing this act, such as fraud or false representation but the one we will be focusing on is for ‘public good’. The exact law states:

‘The Secretary of State may by order deprive a person of a citizenship status if the Secretary of State is satisfied that deprivation is conducive to the public good.’

Between 2010 and 2019, 150 people including Shamima Begum, have been stripped of their citizenship on these grounds, however, the majority of information surrounding these cases is withheld by the government.

In 2013, TBIJ revealed that out of the 36 people who were stripped of their citizenship since 2010, only 18 could be identified. After further research into these 18 people, every single British born national was non-white.

Theresa May made a number of amendments to the citizenship law to make it increasingly easier to enforce, using vague language such as “seriously prejudicial to the vital interests of the United Kingdom”. Using such broad terms is an incredibly dangerous approach to law making which means you can use any justification and mould it to fit this definition. As this is a law that disproportionately affects PoC on the grounds of “public goods”, this concept is no longer dystopian, but real.

Today, it has been used to justify the death of Shamima’s newborn child and disassociate her from Britishness on the grounds of terror. Just as the definition has become broader in the past two decades, tomorrow it threatens our rights even further.

Since it is illegal to be rendered stateless, the UK is only allowed to remove citizenship if they have grounds to believe they are able to receive citizenship from another country. In the past, most people who have been stripped have had dual nationality, or previously had nationality of another country.

Now that the government has set the precedent of stripping British born nationals of their citizenship, without another country to receive them, racial overtones have become even more prevalent. 

For second and third generation diaspora in the UK, the question of identity has always been a difficult one for us to come to terms with. For many, we are attempting to understand our culture and nationality on a personal level, whilst living in an increasingly hostile country.

I am of Pakistani heritage, born and brought up in the UK, able to speak broken Urdu and have visited Pakistan a handful of times. Whilst I feel a strong connection with my family, culture and heritage, the only place I feel at home is in Britain. This country is all I have ever known and is the one that shaped me. For me, exile to Pakistan would be as ridiculous as exiling Americans to Ireland because of their descent. Where their ancestor’s immigration is celebrated at Thanksgiving every year, for PoC, ours is used as a threat over our heads. 

In the ruling, the judge agreed that there were reasonable grounds for Shamima Begum to claim Bangladeshi citizenship, but last year the Bangladesh foreign minister stated that she would not be welcome in the country. To me, this makes perfect sense, since Shamima was not born there, has never lived there and is not wanted by them. The government, and those who support their decision, believe Shamima Begum is a national security threat. However, instead of making me question her right to British citizenship, this questions their faith in their justice system and national security. 

As a country that has recently just voted to leave the EU on the grounds that we want our laws back so people can be tried and prosecuted under British courts, it seems we have failed at the first hurdle. Moreover, Shamima Begum was a minor when she left the country. What does this say about our approach to victims of grooming and the issue of consent – considering she was married days after she arrived in Syria? This ruling brings up far more questions than answers but at the core, one that we have been starkly reminded of since the Windrush scandal, it asks us this.

What does it mean to be British?

We are already seeing the dangerous route this is going down with deportation flights for Jamaicans for crimes they have already served time for. Does this mean getting arrested at a protest, exercising our freedom of expression, could lead to our deportation in 10 years time? 

Shamima Begum is the tip of the iceberg.