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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The writers are a Labour peer and former minister and a Conservative former minister respectively
It is no secret that the two of us disagree on many topics. From immigration to the size of the state, our views sit at different ends of the political spectrum.
Nevertheless, both of us believe that British citizenship should confer the same inalienable rights on all those who hold it; on those of mixed heritage, on those whose ancestors were here before the Norman conquest and on those who took the oath of citizenship today. We reject, as fundamentally racist, the argument that those born British who hold dual citizenship can be deprived of their British passport while those with no foreign heritage cannot. In other words, we believe that once British, always and equally British.
Among the fundamental rights that this citizenship confers are equality before the law and the right to trial by jury, until which time we are all innocent until proven guilty. In the words of Lord Palmerston: “so also a British subject, in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England will protect him against injustice and wrong”.
That means protecting the rights of law-abiding British citizens and also those accused of heinous acts. Defence of our rights cannot be abandoned simply because it is politically convenient. Regrettably, however, that is exactly what the government has chosen to do in the case of Shamima Begum. This vulnerable British citizen, born and raised in the UK, was groomed at 15 and trafficked to join Isis in Syria, where she was forcibly married and two of her children died. For several years, she has been held in captivity without trial, in overcrowded detention facilities rife with disease, malnutrition and death, where her third child consequently died. Surrounded by hostility, violence and suspicion, she is not free to speak openly or plead her case.
Certainly, Shamima Begum made grave mistakes. But she is our responsibility and no one else’s. In all normal circumstances, a 15-year-old girl, radicalised in the UK and subjected to barbarous treatment, would be viewed as a victim and also judged on her actions in a domestic court. After all, if her actions were criminal, we must consider the question Andrew Mitchell MP asked a few years ago: “since when was a schoolgirl too much for the British justice system?”
Begum is not the only British-born detainee in north-east Syrian prisons to have had their citizenship stripped. Reprieve, the legal NGO estimates there are 25 British families currently being held in indefinite, unlawful detention there and subjected, according to UK courts, to inhuman and degrading treatment. None has been charged with a crime. Among them are approximately 10 men, 20 women and 35 children, the majority under 10 years old. Their lives are at risk every day they remain in these prisons.
The Kurdish authorities who run the camps have repeatedly asked the UK to repatriate the Britons there. And irrespective of the constitutional rights these individuals have by virtue of their citizenship, there is a pragmatic security argument for repatriating them — one which the UK alone among its allies is ignoring. Even President Trump has returned prisoners to US soil, where dozens of domestic prosecutions have been brought against them.
US officials recently stated: “this is a security and humanitarian crisis that is worsening by the day. The detention facilities are key Isis targets and . . . the camps are highly insecure”. They went on to identify “the only durable solution”: for countries “to repatriate, rehabilitate, reintegrate and, where appropriate, prosecute their nationals”.
A recent report by a cross-party parliamentary group concluded that the refusal to repatriate Britons and the use of citizenship stripping was “an irresponsible abdication of our responsibility, contributes to instability in the region and creates future security risks”. The joint committee on human rights of both Commons and Lords warned this week of “a serious lack of transparency and oversight”, as well as overuse, of citizenship stripping by the UK.
The UK rightly prides itself on equality, on upholding the rule of law and on principles of due process dating back to Magna Carta. Yet by abandoning these British families in the camps, by stripping them of their citizenship and allowing them to be held in detention, we are guaranteeing that there will be no legal process, no accountability and no justice.
Avoiding our international responsibilities is also fundamentally unBritish, which is why we must urgently repatriate Begum and the other Britons in north-east Syria, why we must step in to protect innocent British children and identify victims of human trafficking, and bring prosecutions where appropriate on UK soil and according to UK law.
We have some of the most detailed anti-terrorism statutes in the world. It is surely not beyond the UK courts to ensure, as our allies have done, that justice in the case of this small number of people, including children, is done?
