{"id":668,"date":"2013-11-14T15:01:53","date_gmt":"2013-11-14T15:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/polsis.org\/?p=668"},"modified":"2013-11-14T15:01:53","modified_gmt":"2013-11-14T15:01:53","slug":"between-discipline-and-dissent-revoking-citizenship-is-dangerous-whatever-the-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/polsis\/2013\/11\/14\/between-discipline-and-dissent-revoking-citizenship-is-dangerous-whatever-the-crime\/","title":{"rendered":"Between discipline and dissent: revoking citizenship is dangerous whatever the crime"},"content":{"rendered":"

Attempts to render terror suspects stateless, represent a dangerous step towards revoking the citizenship of anyone who dissents, and highlight a shift in the meaning of citizenship from emancipation to conformity.<\/em><\/strong><\/b><\/p>\n

\"tonkiss<\/a> Stories emerged earlier this week<\/a>\u00a0about Home Secretary Theresa May\u2019s plans to make terror\u00a0 suspects stateless by revoking their UK citizenship. The Government is already able to revoke UK citizenship from those with a dual citizenship, however according to these reports options are being explored to overturn international human rights conventions in order to strip citizenship from those with only a UK passport \u2013 rendering them stateless.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Not really British<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is interesting that the powers are intended to remove citizenship from \u2018terror suspects\u2019 and not \u2018convicted terrorists\u2019, implying that judgments over whether or not suspects are involved in types of behaviour that are \u2018seriously prejudicial to the UK\u2019 could be made outside of a formal legal proceeding.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, the UK legal system \u2013 while it does not allow convicted criminals to vote \u2013 does not strip citizenship from those criminals. Could this power be extended to others, or is there a working assumption here that all terror suspects are \u2018not really British\u2019, and therefore can have their citizenship removed at the discretion of the state?<\/p>\n

Discipline or dissent?<\/strong><\/p>\n

This points to a wider shift in the meaning we attribute to citizenship today. Traditionally, citizenship has been\u00a0defined<\/a>\u00a0as a set of civil, social and political rights, and as such was conceptualised as emancipatory: the right to vote, the provision of basic social rights, the right to be treated equally, and so forth.<\/p>\n

However, increasingly that meaning is changing, and particularly this has been in relation to how citizenship is gained. As May has continually commented, citizenship is now understood as a \u2018privilege\u2019 not a right, and it is something that is \u2018earned\u2019 through \u2018good character<\/a>\u2019, citizenship testing and pledging allegiance.<\/p>\n

All of this implies the requirement to conform to the state in order to gain citizenship. The citizenship test itself has been revised to include more content on history and culture, something which \u2013 as I have argued\u00a0elsewhere<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 implies a greater demand for conformity to a specific type of state-sanctioned British identity.<\/p>\n

The idea that citizenship can be revoked is dangerous no matter what the alleged crime, because it implies the ability of the state not only to demand conformity in gaining citizenship, but also that the state can revoke that citizenship at any time if someone is judged to have dissented. This is not the ideal of citizenship that lies at the heart of liberal democracy.<\/p>\n

Dr Katherine Tonkiss is a Research Fellow in the School of Government and Society, University of Birmingham. She is interested in migration, citizenship and post-nationalism \u2013 particularly in relation to policy-making in the UK and the EU. Her book,\u00a0Migration and Identity in a Post-National World<\/a>, has recently been published by Palgrave Macmillan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Attempts to render terror suspects stateless, represent a dangerous step towards revoking the citizenship of anyone who dissents, and highlight a shift in the meaning of citizenship from emancipation to conformity. Stories emerged earlier this week\u00a0about Home Secretary Theresa May\u2019s plans to make terror\u00a0 suspects stateless by revoking their UK citizenship. The Government is already … Continue reading “Between discipline and dissent: revoking citizenship is dangerous whatever the crime”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":144,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[24,70,147],"class_list":["post-668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-citizenship","tag-home-office","tag-terror-suspects"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/polsis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/polsis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/polsis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/polsis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/144"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/polsis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/polsis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/polsis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/polsis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/polsis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}