The Future of ‘Citizenship Policy’ in the UK

This guest post, written by Katherine Tonkiss, Agnes Czajka, Tendayi Bloom, Eleni Andreouli, Devyani Prabhat, Cynthia Orchard, Nira Yuval-Davis, Kelly Staples and Georgie Wemyss,* considers the future of citizenship policy in the UK in response to a recent inquiry into citizenship policy in the UK.

As the Windrush scandal has shown, when a person is unable to show evidence of their citizenship, the results can be devastating. In August 2019, the think tank British Future launched an independent inquiry into UK citizenship policy, chaired by Alberto Costa MP,  inviting experts to submit evidence. In response, one group of academics and NGOs came together to map an agenda for citizenship policy in the UK. This blog summarises some of their recommendations.

Some Background

Traditionally, UK citizenship has been associated with commitment to and participation in certain political institutions and traditions. More recently, increasing politicisation of immigration and emphasis on ‘national belonging’ have been linked to a shift towards associating the legal status of citizenship with socio-cultural interpretations of ‘integration’ and ‘national belonging’. However, these are ambiguous concepts and lead to different meanings of citizenship for those who are born into it and those who must apply for legal recognition of their citizenship later in life.

Moreover, by creating a ‘hostile environment’ in order to discourage migration and settlement to those who ‘do not belong’, there has been a much more general transformation of citizenship duties for those who do belong. They are required to become unpaid, untrained border guards, making sure, under threat of criminalization, that they do not employ, rent, teach, or give any health or other public services to those who are not entitled to it by law, creating an overall much more divisive and racialized society.

For those who do not have access to legal citizenship status in the UK at birth today, obtaining that status is an often expensive, complicated and lengthy process. The rules are complex, the fees are high, the application forms are long and access to free legal assistance is limited or unavailable. Applicants must also prove themselves to be of good moral standing, and pass written exams to demonstrate their understanding of 'Life in the UK’.

The UK is one of the founding members of the United Nations, co-drafter of its Charter, and signatory to all of the core UN human rights treaties. As such it has committed itself to ensure the human rights of everyone within the country and the territories under its control. This means that access to human rights, as found in those treaties, should not depend on legal status and should not be a part of citizenship policy.

Acquiring UK citizenship

Policy relating to the acquisition of citizenship should focus on ensuring that: (i) everyone making their lives in the UK or UK territories or who has a relevant overseas stake in the country can access citizenship; (ii) no one is inhibited in their access to citizenship on the basis of poverty, race, gender, sexuality, education level, age, or ill health; and (iii) legal citizenship status is full, permanent and equal, enjoyed without discrimination.

To achieve these aims, access to the legal status of UK citizenship must not be difficult, burdensome or expensive. Indeed, for those without any other citizenship (i.e., stateless people living in the UK), UK citizenship should be made even more easily available, with significantly reduced documentary requirements. This means that administrative hurdles to legal citizenship status should be reduced and financial costs abolished where possible, particularly for those without economic resources and for children.

Making access to the legal status of citizenship contingent on finances, employment, health, language, or some other factor effectively sets these criteria as barriers to accessing the full political and legal rights and duties of UK citizenship. This has two particularly problematic implications. First, it risks creating a legal underclass in British society. Those unable to secure the legal status of citizenship of the UK, where the UK is their home country, risk being consigned to intractable economic and political vulnerability and discrimination. Second, it means that there are people who, in being blocked from citizenship in the UK, remain stateless, unable to access citizenship in any country. This includes growing numbers of UK-born children who have lived their whole lives in the country.

Citizenship testing

Currently, as part of the citizenship acquisition process, people must take what is called a 'Life in the UK' test, as well we prove their English (or other official) language competency. This undermines the above aims of citizenship policy in three main ways.

First, the test explicitly makes access to the legal rights and duties of UK citizenship contingent on ability to recall facts relating to a narrow understanding of British culture and history which does not reflect the many ways in which Britishness is lived across the regions of the UK. It requires test-takers to be able to answer questions that relate to contested histories and fails to show equal respect for the expressions of Britishness among minority or marginalised communities.

Second, the need to take a test premised on the ability to recall a list of facts implicitly makes political membership in the UK dependent on study and exam-taking skills, which arbitrarily favours those with particular academic skills, educational background, or the resources for private tuition. This risks consigning people with poorer reading skills, weaker exam techniques, learning and other disabilities to a lack of legal recognition.

Third, when considering the role of language requirements, it is crucial to recognise that there has always been an expectation of linguistic diversity in the UK. This is evident, for example, in the official languages of the UK’s four nations and the many recognised minority languages. This means that while access to language learning is crucial, linguistic diversity is not at odds with traditional notions of British life. If language requirements are retained, they should be basic, and people should be supported in order to acquire the necessary language skills through subsidised classes.

Re-making citizenship policy

These findings suggest that UK citizenship policy needs to be rethought in three critical ways:

1. Citizenship should be understood as a foundational legal status, from which no one should be arbitrarily or unfairly excluded. Citizenship should guarantee full and equal participation in British life.
2. The process of acquiring citizenship should be rational, simple and transparent, with adequate financial and legal support. It should be understood as an inclusive mechanism for ensuring legal recognition of citizenship, rather than a means to make prospective citizens ‘earn’ their status.
3. Citizenship as a legal status should be disentangled from integration policy. However, ensuring fair and equal access to legal recognition of citizenship, which is then an equal and secure legal status, would contribute to a strengthened UK citizen identity.

Citizenship policy in the UK should be directed at ensuring that everyone living in the country can participate fully and without discrimination in its political, social and economic life.

*Katherine Tonkiss is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Policy at Aston University. Her work is primarily concerned with critically examining the relationship between citizenship and national identity, with a particular interest in theories of post-nationalism. Agnes Czajka is a Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Studies at the Open University. Her research interests include contemporary social and political thought, continental political philosophy, democracy, citizenship and migrant and refugee politics. Tendayi Bloom is a Lecturer in Politics and International Studies at the University of Birmingham. Her work focuses on the relationships between noncitizens and States and noncitizens and the multi-State system. Eleni Andreouli is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the Open University. She is a social psychologist and her work focuses on how citizenship is constructed in the sphere of everyday life and lay political thinking. Devyani Prabhat is a Reader in Law at the University of Bristol Law School. Her work, socio-legal in nature, focuses on British citizenship and other long term settled statuses. Cynthia Orchard is a Statelessness Policy and Casework Coordinator at Consonant. Her work focuses on statelessness law and policy. Nira Yuval-Davis is a Professor Emeritus and an Honorary Director of the Centre for research on Migration, Refugees and Belonging (CMRB) at the University of East London. Her work has been on different intersectional aspects of nationalism, racism, citizenship, the politics of belonging and everyday bordering. Kelly Staples is Associate Professor of International Politics at the University of Leicester. Her research is on statelessness, risk of statelessness, solidarity and international protection. Georgie Wemyss is an anthropologist and co-director of the CMRB at the University of East London. Her research has been focusing on the post-colonial impact of Britain’s racialized minorities as well as on everyday bordering in contemporary Britain. In addition, the written submission upon which the post draws also featured contributions from Academics Stand Against Poverty.

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How to cite this blog post (Harvard style) 

Tonkiss, K., Czajka, A., Bloom, T., Andreouli, E., Prabhat, D., Orchard, C., Yuval-Davis, N., Staples, K. and Wemyss, G. (2020). The Future of ‘Citizenship Policy’ in the UK. Available at: https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/centre-criminology/centreborder-criminologies/blog/2020/02/future (Accessed [date])