Modern Exile: Citizenship Will Not Be Enough to Protect Us
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Section:GDN 1J PaGe:1 Edition Date:190305 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 4/3/2019 19:08 cYanmaGentaYellowblac • G2 The anti-EU lies are back to exploit Britain’s weak spot Polly Toynbee, page 3 Daily pullout life & Europe is in crisis. But leaving is not the answer Emmanuel Macron, page 4 culture section How Aldi changed the way we shop The long read, page 9 Inside The Guardian Tuesday 5 March 2019 Opinion and ideas nder ancient Roman law, those from America by his owner, was freed by the court rather ILLUSTRATION: who were accused of the most than being deported to the plantations of Jamaica. NATHALIE LEES Modern exile: heinous crimes were stripped Even non-British citizens accused of grievous off ences of their status as citizens. They have been off ered the protection of British laws. In became known as “ homo sacer ”, or 2012, the supreme court demanded the return to British “sacred man” – sacred in its original custody of Yunus Rahmatullah, a Pakistani citizen citizenship will U sense, of being set apart. Anyone arrested by British forces in Iraq, but subsequently who encountered the sacred man handed over to the Americans and imprisoned was entitled to kill him with impunity. The distinction indefi nitely without trial at Bagram airbase. depended on the privileged political and legal status Britain resisted creating clear categories of citizens not be enough aff orded to Roman citizens . and outsiders until the beginning of the 20th century, With the fall of the Roman empire, the rigorous but once created, those categories have gradually and divisions it upheld – between those deserving protection inevitably narrowed and hardened. In 1914, in response and those no better than beasts – fell into abeyance. It to panic about foreign spies, the British Nationality to protect us has taken a long time for the concept of “citizen” to be and Status of Aliens Act created a legal distinction reconstituted to the point where its withdrawal can once between the monarch’s subjects and aliens. This was James again be considered akin to a death sentence. further codifi ed in the British Nationality Act of 1948 , English law has since at least the 12th century held which established the status of Citizen of the United Bridle that all people, regardless of class or origin, have the Kingdom and Colonies – under which the Windrush right to representation and a fair trial – not based on generation and many others established themselves. James Bridle their citizenship but on the principles of human liberty. But from the 1960s, racist fears over immigration led to is the author of For centuries this was equally applied to foreigners , a gradual restriction of the defi nition of citizenship to New Dark Age: sometimes with radical outcomes. The grounds for the exclude those not deemed British enough Technology abolition of slavery were laid by a 1772 case in which – primarily those from Britain’s former and the End James Somerset , an African slave brought to England colonies and the Commonwealth. of the Future Section:GDN 1J PaGe:2 Edition Date:190305 Edition:03 Zone: Sent at 4/3/2019 22:48 cYanmaGentaYellowblac ••• The Guardian Tuesday 5 March 2019 2 Modern exile: citizenship will not be enough to protect us James Bridle Founded 1821 Independently owned by the Scott Trust № 53,660 ‘Comment is free… but facts are sacred’ CP Scott Continued from front The move to strip Shamima Begum of Tax havens government feared that a toughly worded cross- her citizenship follows the same racist party parliamentary amendment demanding that the logic as those laws (the Labour leader Hugh crown dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle Gaitskell called the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Brexit is boosting the Tory of Man – inexplicably excluded from the bill – also Act “cruel and brutal anti-colour legislation”). publish ownership registers would have made such The government claims that Begum is eligible for subservience to the City evasions impossible. This is a serious mistake, one Bangladeshi citizenship, and therefore to remove highlighted by the “ Troika Laundromat ” revelations her British citizenship would not render her stateless rather than reining it in of how companies serviced by UK tax havens are (which is illegal under international law). It was Theresa integral to the circulation of millions of dollars of May who, as home secretary, made repeated and apparently fraudulent funds. systemic eff orts to route around this law, but was forced The government’s decision to pull its fi nancial services Britain ought to be on the side of the law-keepers to settle on the wording of the 2014 Immigration Act, bill is revealing about who calls the shots in parliament. not the law-breakers. Crown dependencies and which allowed her to render British citizens eff ectively In a word: the City. Rather than accept a small step overseas territories trade on their association with stateless provided a claim could be made to their forward for tax fairness, a move backed by a cross-party the UK without adhering to the standards required eligibility for citizenship elsewhere. coalition, ministers dropped one of six key pieces of of those companies operating within the UK itself. It should be noted that no such move has been made legislation required to pass by the end of March as part Their appearance at the centre of illicit fi nance against, for example, Samantha Lewthwaite , the white of a no-deal Brexit safety net. It is a sign of Theresa May’s revelations, notably those in the Panama papers data widow of 7/7 bomber Germaine Lindsay, who is eligible weakness in offi ce that the bill could not pass in the leak in 2016 and in the Paradise papers in 2017, should for Irish citizenship, and has been living in Somalia and form the government wanted and a clear demonstration not be ignored . This paper agrees with the foreign Kenya for many years. And other nations have followed that big fi nance continues to call the tune in the upper aff airs select committee that called on ministers May’s lead: a coalition of rightwing parties in the reaches of the Conservative party. to demonstrate “political leadership in ending the Netherlands, where Begum’s husband has said he could Over the last few decades the British tax system and fl ow of dirty money into the UK”. By withdrawing take her , passed citizenship-stripping laws specifi cally broader economy have been steadily reconfi gured to the bill the government reveals that it still prefers a target ing returning jihadists in 2017. serve the interests of a class of off shore super-rich. The global regime underpinned not by strong but weak Square Mile sits at the centre of a spider’s web that allows international regulation. egum is clearly being used to stoke London bankers, accountants and lawyers to create a Britain has been cursed by its fi nancial prowess. racist fears and tensions not merely over tax-free way for the richest people on the planet to place According to one study , an oversized City infl icted a returning jihadis, but of enemies within, their assets under UK management but without UK cumulative £4.5tn hit on the British economy from in line with May’s “hostile environment” regulatory oversight. Britain’s archipelago of territories 1995-2015. Some of this due to the global fi nancial policy. May has a deep, parochial and dependencies account for about a quarter of all crash of 2008. But academics calculated that there hostility to those she feels do not show global off shore fi nancial services provided to non- about £2.7tn was lost when the City became rich Bsuffi cient allegiance to her version of residents. Brexit was supposed to be a clarion call to by siphoning off cash from the economy rather Britishness, summed up by her assertion end the political class’s subservience to such interests. than adopting a useful role such as investing in that, “ If you are a citizen of everywhere, you’re a citizen Tragically this nation’s departure from the European manufacturing, which would have lifted the incomes of nowhere.” But it’s her earlier and repeated statements Union appears to be boosting it. of people who live far from the City of London. It is as home secretary that “citizenship is a privilege not a The government’s bill was far from perfect. But it ironic that the government is attempting to buy the right” which should provoke deep concerns, given the was supposed to begin a process of reining in Britain’s votes of Labour MPs representing leave-voting towns British state’s accelerating use of citizenship deprivation postcolonial possessions, which have become rich and left behind by the march of money. Ministers ought as a punishment over the last decade. Citizenship disruptive through their tax-haven status. It would have to confront in a much deeper way the mainspring itself has been weaponised in this age of electronic forced the overseas territories to reveal company owners of fi nance that has become an end in itself, surveillance, loosely defi ned terrorism off ences and by 2020. Ministers could live with that as they reasoned disconnected from the economy and from the people increased border security. the bill’s intent could be side-stepped. However, the and businesses it ought to serve. It is not hard to see echoes of May’s jingoism in her use of the British citizens living in the EU as pawns in the Brexit negotiations; we are, after all, mere “citizens of every where”. The global surveillance regime Academic publishing a Khazak graduate student, which now claims to initiated in the “war on terror” has also allowed the off er access to every paywalled article published security services to perform a de facto rewriting of since 2015.