Activists from Amnesty International human rights group gathered outside the Home Office in central London on Tuesday, June 28, 2022 – to oppose the Nationality and Borders Act.
Under the Nationality and Borders Bill being debated in the House of Lords, if the British government wants to remove someone’s citizenship it will no longer need to tell them.
Citizenship is the right to live in a country – without it, people cannot vote, and they might struggle to work or access education or healthcare. Under international law – and specifically the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights – everyone has the right to nationality so people cannot “arbitrarily” be left stateless.
The British government says it is possible to strip people of their citizenship if they have another nationality to fall back on – for example, if they have dual citizenship, or if it is possible to get citizenship somewhere else, such as the country their parents come from. The new part of the law means that the government will no longer have to inform people that their citizenship is being removed.
But minority groups say they could become “second-class citizens” if the bill is passed.
That’s what more than 20 groups, including the Muslim Association of Britain, Sikh Council UK and Windrush Lives, said at demonstrations in front of Downing Street in December and January.
