91热爆

Clive Anderson and guests discuss whether the 91热爆 Office should have the power to take away the citizenship of someone born and brought up in Britain.

If a British person travels to Syria and joins a proscribed terrorist group, should they be allowed to keep their British citizenship? The case of Shamima Begum, whose citizenship was revoked earlier this year, made headlines - but she鈥檚 far from the only British-born person to have her passport taken away. In 2017, the 91热爆 Office issued 104 deprivation of citizenship orders in cases where the Secretary of State believed that the deprivation was 鈥渃onducive to the public good鈥�.

Are these deprivations a vital tool in our fight against terrorism, or a worrying move towards turning citizenship into a privilege rather than an inalienable right.

Immigration lawyer Fahad Ansari argues that, by revoking citizenship from people who have the right to citizenship in another country, the government is creating a two-tier system, where someone with family ties outside Britain can be treated differently to someone without them. The former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation Lord Carlile says that we need to be able to protect the public from people who intend to carry out terror attacks and removing citizenship is one way to do that, particularly where there is not enough evidence for a criminal trial.

Clive鈥檚 guests will also explore what鈥檚 required to become a British citizen, attempting to answer some questions from the Life in the UK test with Professor Thom Brooks from Durham Law School 鈥� himself a dual British-US citizen.

Producer: Hannah Marshall
A 7digital production for 91热爆 Radio 4