• 1 House of Commons’ Library, Migration Statistics, Standard Note (SN/SG/6077), 17 June 2014.

1From the mid-1990s Britain has been a popular destination for migrants and the country has experienced rising trends of people migrating to the UK for different reasons. Today Britain’s foreign-born population includes economic migrants from and outside the European Economic Area (EEA), asylum seekers, students, visitors and irregulars. Their numbers have risen swiftly and steadily so that immigration has been exceeding emigration by more than 100,000 in every year since the turn of the century.¹ Although the UK has been a multi-national and multicultural society for quite a long time now, over the last fifteen years intense debates on immigration and citizenship have led to several policy reviews and significant reforms of British citizenship. The policy developments presented below span the 1997-2014 period during which modifications to the processes of settlement but also of acquiring and losing UK citizenship were implemented. Governmental instruments of migration policy narrowed down the number of “acceptable migrants” by way of stricter border controls to detect irregulars and measures to fight human trafficking, the implementation of the points based system to replace work permits, the introduction of a net cap on migrant workers, the delivery of fewer student visas, the rapid processing of asylum requests and a greater use of deportation orders to expel failed asylum seekers and irregulars from the country.

• 2 S. Blinder, “Naturalisation as a British Citizen: Concepts and Trends”, Migration Observatory Brief (...)
• 3 D. Gray and C. Griffin, “A Journey to Citizenship: Constructions of Citizenship and Identity in the (...)

3Questions of nationality are related to immigration law which regulates the legal rights and responsibilities of different categories of migrants, so that the right to acquire British citizenship is highly dependent upon one’s legal immigration status. Although it would be beyond the scope of this paper to dwell on the many reforms in the field of immigration policy, some of the objectives and implications of citizenship policy are tightly connected to the immigration agenda. In 2014, just 125,800 foreign residents became British citizens through naturalisation, a significant decrease compared to the average of 195,800 per year over the 2009-2013 period.2 Amid concerns about integration and social cohesion, the Labour governments and the Coalition developed a citizenship agenda centred on a reconceptualization of British identity that would-be citizens can “attain by ‘internalising’ a set of core values”.3 Accordingly governments modified the legal procedure and practice through several pieces of legislation: Immigration, Nationality and Asylum Act of 2002, Asylum and Immigration Act of 2004, Immigration, Nationality and Asylum Act of 2006, Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act of 2009 and Immigration Act of 2014.

• 4 J. Clarke, “New Labour’s Citizens: Activated, Empowered, Responsibilized, Abandoned?’, Critical Soc (...)
• 5 B. Anderson, “Citizenship: What is it and why does it Matter?’ Policy Primer, The Migration Observa (...)
• 6 David Blunkett, quoted in “Citizenship classes for immigrants”, The Guardian, 26 October 2001.
• 7 Home Office, Secure Borders, Safe Haven. Integration with Diversity in Modern Britain (London, Stat (...)

4When coming into office New Labour adopted a distinctive approach to modernize Britain which included an updating of citizenship in their political project and a first attempt to define ideal British citizens. As John Clarke argued “New Labour’s ideal citizens are moralized, choice-making, self-directing subjects”.4 Following the Crick report (1998), citizenship education was introduced in English secondary schools and the Advisory Board on Naturalisation and Integration (ABNII) was set up to work on the creation of language and citizenship courses and tests for would-be citizens. The disturbances of the summer 2001 and the Cantle report commissioned to make recommendations on social cohesion showed the government’s main concern to promote common citizenship between different ethnic communities. It “emphasised the importance of promoting a ‘meaningful concept of citizenship’”.5 As Home Secretary Blunkett asserted: “We need to educate new migrants in citizenship and help them to develop an understanding of our language, democracy and culture”.⁶ The 2002 White Paper “Safe Haven, Secure Borders” (Home Office 2002) that followed proposed an inclusive version of the concept of citizenship based on a common identity with essential attributes to which people should identify. The text insisted on the rights and duties attached to UK citizenship defined in terms of belonging to the ‘nation’ and focused primarily on the nature and extent of citizen behaviours.⁷ The Home Office recommended to abandon the “low-key and bureaucratic approach which the UK has adopted to the acquisition of British citizenship”. The Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 made citizenship ceremonies mandatory, thereby creating a new legal condition in the acquisition of British citizenship (see infra).

• 8 E. Andreouli and P. Dashtipour, “British Citizenship and the ‘Other’: an Analysis of the Earned Cit (...)
• 9 S. Condor, S. Gibson and J. Abell, “English Identity and Ethnic Diversity in the Context of UK Cons (...)

5Five years later, in July 2007 in its Green Paper The Governance of Britain, the fourth Labour government reassessed the nature of the links between its citizens and the state. The concept of citizenship was further explored within the process of naturalisation to move beyond the primary definition of citizenship as simply a formal legal status so as to include a prescriptive dimension where ‘formal citizenship’ would be reconciled to ‘substantive citizenship’. Such reflexion was born after the London bombings of July 2005, the re-emergence of the terrorist threat in the summer of 2006 (with the thwarting of planned bomb attacks on several transatlantic flights) and also the Islamic veil controversy triggered off by Labour leader Jack Straw. Queries were raised in the political, social but also academic spheres on the scope of British multiculturalism but also on its perceived failures. In the governmental view there was a growing feeling that more had to be done in the fields of the politics of belonging and the management of national boundaries.8 Although the governmental rhetoric acknowledged the diversity of the different communities living in the UK, it also insisted on a supreme identity deriving from a “multicultural construction of British identity”9:

• 11 Bosniak, L., The citizen and the Alien: Dilemmas of contemporary membership. Princeton, Princeton U (...)

6Yet such conception is prescriptive and entailed the revision of British citizenship to adapt it to ‘the rights and responsibilities’ already foreshadowed in the 2002 text. To the government it was time to devise clearer criteria on citizenship acquisition and to have them implemented through detailed injunctions and formal rules. They pointed out that the concept had been overstretched in some occasions so as to include “everything and nothing at the same time”11:

• 13 B. Anderson, “Citizenship: What is it and why does it Matter?”, Policy Primer, The Migration Observ (...)
• 14 See the analysis made by the ILPA (Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association), http://www.ilpa.org (...)
• 15 The duration of the different stages – temporary residence and probationary citizenship − varied fr (...)
• 16 B. Anderson, “Citizenship: What is it and why does it Matter?”, Policy Primer, The Migration Observ (...)

7The next step was the publication of a governmental report in February 2008, entitled The Path to Citizenship: next steps in reforming the immigration system, followed by the passing of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009. The new act replaced citizenship acquisition within the broader framework of migration policies which led to a strengthening of border controls (in particular with new powers for customs officials and immigration officers) and extended the time it takes to gain citizenship. More significantly the text broke the link between length of residence, right to settlement and naturalisation.13 It amended the rules on naturalisation to reduce the number of immigrants allowed to remain permanently: “A bill...to ensure that newcomers to the United Kingdom earn the right to stay” (emphasis mine). UK citizenship was conceived as the final step in the journey made by migrants who had decided to come to Britain. Newcomers were first granted a temporary residence status (for a period up to 5 years), then allowed to progress to probationary citizenship (for a minimum of 12 months) to finally reach permanent residence, i.e. British citizenship. Conditions were attached to probationary citizenship, in particular provisions stipulated that migrants were enjoined to “make the right contribution to the country”. Critics pointed out that the new conditions were going to lead many to lose their entitlement to remain in the UK.¹⁴ The limits of the 2009 act were clear making it longer and harder for migrants to become settled and gain British citizenship. The introduction of the ‘probationary period’ in the route to citizenship was meant to prevent migrants from having full access to a range of benefits available to permanently settled foreign nationals. The notion of ‘active participation/contribution’ to British society was particularly ambiguous. Applicants were required to prove they were of good character and that they were good taxpayers. It was also about demonstrating some sort of positive interaction with the local community.¹⁵ As Anderson points out “the community of value is populated not simply by citizens but by Good citizens, imagined law-abiding and hard-working members of stable and respectable families”.16 Since then, the moralistic connotations attached to the acquisition of British citizenship have had a ‘utilitarian’ dimension praising the economic worthiness of certain categories of migrants.

• 17 “We will not implement Labour's policy of earned citizenship, which was too complicated, bureaucrat (...)

8The coalition government sought to simplify the system they inherited; the probationary stage, deemed too complex and bureaucratic was abandoned in July 2011 and so was the concept of ‘active citizenship’ which was meant to entice migrants doing volunteering in their community.¹⁷ This abandon may seem incoherent with the Big Society agenda which encouraged the civil society and local communities in particular to engage and be part of policy change. The Big Society concept was aimed at motivating participation through various forms but the Home Office’s decision to drop the ‘active citizenship’ requirement implicitly excluded parts of the foreign population from the Big Society agenda.

• 18 In 2014 the good character requirement came first in the list of reasons for refusals, followed by (...)

9The latest reform on the conditions to acquire British citizenship has not modified the overwhelming spirit of the definition, citizenship under the coalition and now the Conservative government remains prescriptive and utilitarian: the right to stay must still be ‘earned’ by prospective citizens. The moral and economic worthiness of some would-be citizens remains a crucial requirement to become part of the national community. Quite significantly in December 2012 the Cameron-Clegg administration sought to reinforce the weight of ‘the good character’ requirement when assessing applications for UK citizenship. The requirement was stipulated in the British Nationality Act of 1981 but was never properly defined, nor was any statutory guidance issued as to how this should be interpreted or applied in practice. In December 2007 in a Home Office announcement the criterion was related to the question of criminal convictions and since then it has been used more often than not by case workers when rejecting applications for naturalisation. Refusals of naturalisation applications based on the failure to meet ‘the good character requirement’ accounted for 34% of all refusals in 2014, a steady increase since 2010 (29% of all refusals).¹⁸

• 19 Home Office, Nationality Policy Guidance and Casework Instruction. Chapter 18, Annex D: The Good Ch (...)

10More recently in an effort to introduce transparency in its practice the Home Office published a series of instructions to its citizenship officers on how to interpret ‘the good character’ requirement when assessing citizenship applications.¹⁹ In particular instructions have been given to check: (i) the criminal record of the applicants, whether laws have not been respected or are not going to be respected (!), (ii) taxes have not been paid, (iii) activities in the community have not been adequate, (iv) deception has been used in the dealings with the UK government, (v) the applicant has been involved in notorious activities.

• 20 W. Kymlicka, “Multicultural Citizenship within Multination States”, Ethnicities 11:3 (2011), p. 281

11The renewed emphasis on citizenship in UK politics was meant to strengthen “a sense of common citizenship as a way of building social cohesion”.20 Such concern was born in the context of a very fast changing societal landscape and led to debates on the pertinence of the multicultural model and on the ways to ensure that would-be citizens would abide by the democratic values of the country.

• 21 Home Office, Citizenship Ceremonies. Consultation Document (London, Stationery Office, 2003), p. 4.
• 22 B. Anderson, “Citizenship: What is it and why does it Matter?”, Policy Primer, The Migration Observ (...)
• 23 E. Andreouli and P. Dashtipour, “British Citizenship and the ‘Other’: an Analysis of the Earned Cit (...)
• 24 B. Anderson, “Exclusion, Failure and the Politics of Citizenship”, RCIS Working Papers, No. 2014/1 (...)
• 25 D. Kiwan, “Highly-Skilled ‘Guest-Workers’ in the UK: Implications for ‘Citizenship’ in Naturalisati (...)

12The significance of becoming a British citizen has been underpinned by the idea that “citizenship is more esteemed and valued when it is earned, not given”.21 In line with the ‘earned citizenship’ framework and the ideal of a ‘committed’ British citizen, future citizens have been invited to take part in a dynamic political process and not simply be the mere recipient/subject of a bureaucratic procedure.22 The acquisition of citizenship has been more arduous, not anymore an automatic right conferred after a few years of residence in the UK as it was the case a decade before. Governments have intended to make it more onerous and longer for migrants to secure rights in the name of security concerns in particular. The acquisition of UK citizenship is conditional upon progressing successfully through various stages and it is a demanding process which requires, until the final stage with the participation in the citizenship ceremony, the individual’s full commitment to the naturalisation procedure (see below). However the system does not offer many alternatives to those who do not apply for citizenship, those who do not meet the criteria (and will never do) or fail to satisfy the tests. In the governmental perspective the naturalisation procedure remains a privilege and not a right; it has an exclusionary dimension, which in the end threatens the permanence of several categories of migrants who do not fit in the normative requisites: failed asylum seekers, students, irregulars, overstayers, those with a criminal conviction. The rules contribute to perpetuate the old dichotomy between deserving and undeserving migrants: “‘Good migrants’ are seen as worthy of British citizenship, whereas ‘bad migrants’ are seen as unworthy”.23 Eligibility to naturalize is closely correlated to the legislation on entry, as exemplified by the case of students and those with temporary visas who cannot accumulate sufficient time toward fulfilling residency requirements. Anderson uses the term ‘failed citizens’ “to allude to those individuals and groups who are imagined as incapable of achieving, or failing to live up to, national ideals”.24 While she alludes to other categories of migrants than students, irregulars and failed asylum seekers, it could be argued that there has been a deliberate attempt to create categories of ‘failed would-be citizens’ in the name of economic and social worthiness. This is epitomized by Kiwan who stress that “a ‘moral’ conception of citizenship is invoked in the notion of ‘good’ citizen predicated on primarily economic ground”.25 Her postulate is related to her analysis of the implications for citizenship of the highly skilled ‘guest-workers’ programme when implemented in 2010, but it was still valid four years later to depict the Coalition citizenship agenda. In that respect the governmental rhetoric of acquiring citizenship drew on the notion of a deal, a contract concluded between newcomers/aspirant-citizens and the State, one which should put on a par the aspirant citizen and the State:

• 27 C. Wright, “Citizenship Tests in Europe”, International Journal on Multicultural Societies 10:1, Sp (...)

14The knowledge of English has been for candidates a longstanding criterion in their application for naturalisation. It had been stipulated in the British Nationality Act 1981 but it was a condition among others like the absence of any criminal conviction and was not rigorously enforced up to the Labour years. In the wake of the 2001 summer riots, the terrorist attacks of September 2001 and following the recommendations made by different commissions (2003 Advisory Group’s report, Crick Report 2002/03) the second Blair government laid stress on the necessity for future citizens to have a good command of the English language. Quite explicitly the linguistic requirement in the 2002 Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act had an immediate short-term economic objective: to fill the needs of the domestic labour market, at a time when skilled migrants and professionals were more than welcome to contribute to the economic development of the country. Linguistic assimilation was also deemed essential to strengthen cohesiveness and since then the linguistic competence has been an absolute precondition for acceptance.27 There has been broad ministerial acceptance across the political spectrum that ‘shared values’ and a good command of the English language are perfect indicators of ‘integration’ in the UK:

• 31 This test is equivalent to the B1 level, the level of an independent user of English (Cf. the Commo (...)

15Since 2005 the linguistic proficiency of future citizens has been certified by the ESOL Test Entry Three (English for Speakers of Other Languages). This minimum level of English means that candidates must be able to hold a conversation on whatever subject in an acceptable English, even if it is not perfect.³¹ The advantages of the British official ESOL is that it has a clearly defined linguistic level and is implemented coherently and consistently across the UK. Dina Kiwan makes a positive appraisal of the system, arguing that:

• 35 See the following articles: T. Brooks, “Failing the Test: Major Review Discovers Serious Problems w (...)

19Experts have accused the new test of many flaws: “impractical, irrelevant, trivial, gender imbalanced, outdated and ineffective”.³⁵ Clearly it is aimed at an educated (if not highly educated) migrant population, those who, in the view of the government, are most welcome to remain in the UK. The relatively high level of the tests is in line with the wider framework on immigration control that successive governments have been implementing: strict selection to accept in the UK only those highly skilled migrants who can bring specific benefits to the United Kingdom. Both tests have put the onus on the applicants to demonstrate their sufficient knowledge and their ability to integrate. They remain closely connected to the wider agenda on immigration control.

• 36 E. Andreouli, and P. Dashtipour, “British Citizenship and the ‘Other’: an Analysis of the Earned Ci (...)

20Until a decade ago, there was not any public ceremony celebrating the incorporation and the belonging of the new British citizens to their new country, contrary to what exists in the US and Canada for example. Together with the language and UK Life Test, the ceremonies were born in the aftermath of the 2001 civil disturbances and terror threats when the Labour governments sought to reinforce their national models of integration linking their citizenship regulations to “the politics of belonging and the management of national boundaries”.36 Within the larger context of globalisation and increased, faster rates of immigration the creation of these ceremonies was also underpinned by the intention of the British state to assert its sovereignty over newcomers.

• 37 J. Costa-Lascoux, « L’intégration ‘à la française’: une philosophie à l’épreuve des réalités », Rev (...)

21Britain’s case is not isolated as testified by the development of citizenship ceremonies in other European countries like France, the Netherlands or Denmark during the same decade. The political roots of the development of these ceremonies lie in part in the recommendations made by the European Commission which encouraged European states to celebrate officially the naturalisation of their new citizens according to the motto “United within diversity”.37 The European Ministerial Conference on Integration in November 2008 endorsed the proposal and recommended:

• 39 Prior to 2004 the application process for acquiring citizenship was exclusively conducted by post.

22In Britain when the first ceremonies were created, they were presented as a way to (i) disentangle a purely administrative procedure of registering citizenship from its bureaucratic characteristics and (ii) as an occasion given to migrants to publicly proclaim the choice they had made, embodying the concept of a voluntarist integration.³⁹

• 41 Oath of Allegiance: “I (name) swear by almighty God that on becoming a British citizen I will be fa (...)

24Following the American and Canadian models the British have made the choice to include the ceremony in the process of naturalisation, hence giving the pledge sworn by applicants its full legal significance. Any candidate, above 18, who has received their invitation to participate in such a ceremony must swear an oath/affirmation of allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen and a pledge of loyalty to the UK. These declarations are made aloud simultaneously by all the candidates-citizens.⁴¹ Their significance was recalled by the Home Secretary in the Commons:

• 44 In July 2014 a Black Country wide-joint citizenship ceremony was organised by the Walsall, Wolverha (...)

26Except for the first ceremonies that hosted governmental members, nowadays all of these opening discourses are made by local citizenship officers whose discursive strategies and rhetorical devices converge. There may be local variations as to the contents to adapt to the regional context and to the origins of the participants.⁴⁴ Standardized speeches and texts are meant to ease and simplify the procedure even though the overuse of symbolic terms testify to the solemnity that the state intends to give to these ceremonies. The rituals should embody the enriching links between the new citizens and the state:

• 47 M. Rimmer, The Future of Citizenship Ceremonies (Ministry of Justice, 2007), p. 4.

27Ten years after the celebration of the first citizenship ceremony there has certainly been a gradual cooling of enthusiasm for these rituals. Local authorities organise them on a regular basis but they have become an administrative process, “albeit an important and celebratory one”.47

• 48 Other texts include: the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness 1961 (art.8(1)), the European (...)
• 49 M.J. Gibney, “‘A Very Transcendental Power’: Denaturalisation and the Liberalisation of Citizenship (...)
• 50 Ibid., p. 638.
• 51 Peers rejected the initial government proposal whereby a Home Secretary’s deprivation order might l (...)
• 52 United Kingdom Supreme Court 62, 9 October 2013.

28Holding citizenship means having a protected legal status under international law and the right to a nationality is guaranteed by article 15 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.⁴⁸ Yet, the UK has long retained the power to deprive somebody of his/her citizenship, a topic explored by Gibney in his article on the historical development of denaturalisation.49 As was argued in the first part, holding citizenship has been construed as a privilege, not a right, which is why “denaturalisation affirms citizenship as a privilege, one that is conditional on a certain standard of behaviour”.50 In recent years Home Secretaries have been exercising more and more their power to strip people of their British citizenship and withdraw passport facilities for those individuals suspected of having been involved in terrorist activities (especially overseas) or considered to be a threat to national security (see table below). This discretionary power has been expanded in the 2014 Immigration Act (clause 60). The text of the new clause on deprivation aroused animated debates in the Commons and the Lords during the winter of 2013-2014 and led to the government’s defeat at report stage in the House of Lords.⁵¹ The clause was inserted in the wake of a landmark case lost by the British government in 2013, Secr. Of State for the Home Department v. Al-Jedda52 the first case on deprivation of citizenship to reach the Supreme Court. The judgement based on section 40 of the British Nationality Act of 1981 which prohibits the Home Secretary to deprive somebody of their British citizenship if that would render the person stateless, irritated the executive profoundly and led Teresa May to introduce at a late stage an amendment on denaturalisation in the 2014 immigration bill. The government’s main argument to back up their proposal was that British citizenship is not a right but a privilege. Mark Harper, then immigration minister stated rather clearly that

• 54 M. Gibney quotes Hillary Clinton’s words in Congress to support legislation to denaturalize US citi (...)

29Such defence echoes Hillary Clinton’s words on the privilege to hold US citizenship.⁵⁴ The government, defeated in the Lords, substituted the Lords’ amendments with two of their own which now form the basis of clause 60.

• 55 ILPA, Immigration Bill House of Commons’ Consideration of Lords’ Amendments 7 May 2014: further bri (...)

30The new clause on deprivation of UK citizenship modifies section 40 of the British Nationality Act 1981 and stipulates the conditions under which an order can be made by the Home Secretary to deprive a person of their British citizenship. The clause provides that (i) a British person can be deprived of his/her citizenship if it was acquired by naturalisation, and that (ii) the deprivation is conducive to public good and that (iii) “the secretary of state has reasonable grounds for believing that the person is able to become a national of another country”. The power can only be used against persons who naturalised and not those who are citizens by birth or registration. The intention of the government is to exercise this power while the person is outside the UK so as to prevent his/her return to the UK, which may leave the person stranded in exile abroad without any valid passport to travel with. There are far reaching implications behind a deprivation order as stipulated by the new act. The power which is to be exercised when the person is abroad will prevent the person from entering the UK again and from lodging any appeal in Britain. It may also be, as the ILPA stress that the right to appeal against the deprivation order may not be exercised in time since the individual stripped of his/her citizenship may be unaware of the decision and of his right of appeal. In addition, although the government has been arguing that a person may acquire another citizenship when deprived of his/her British citizenship, in practice as documentary evidence gathered by the ILPA demonstrates, it may prove very difficult to do so in countries known for their strong executive and widespread discretionary power (Ethiopia, Swaziland, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, or the Dominican Republic).⁵⁵