Thread by @WindrushLives

An important correction to part 15 of the thread - chopped out a bit while copy-pasting.

https://twitter.com/WindrushLives/status/1478061940408733701

To explain a little futher, i.e. a meta-explainer, those two things remain distinct in statute. The power to basically *make* someone immediately stateless is only for naturalised citizens, where there the HO has rsable grounds to believe they can have citizenship elsewhere.

The confusion in discussion arises because Begum is not naturalised, and yet seems to have been made stateless.

Begum was born in the UK, to Bangladeshi parents. She is (was) in the first bracket, i.e. a UK citizen, therefore can't be made stateless.

But the HO argued that she inherited Bangladeshi citizenship through her parents, i.e. she was a dual national without that having been anyone's understanding or a functional aspect of her life up to that point. Therefore she wouldn't actually be stateless.

That is to say she didn't become stateless via the less-protected naturalised-citizens-with-reasonable-right-to-citizenship-elsewhere-only route; she was a citizen who was deemed by the UKSC to actually have dual nationality. Hang on b/c it gets stupider -

It ended in dispute btwn experts on how Bangladeshi citizenship passes by lineage. Ultimately, the Supreme Court took the HO's view, thereby inferring (and in a sense conferring) Bangladeshi citizenship to Begum. Despite Bangladesh itself saying she's not. bbc.co.uk/news/uk-473122…

Clear as mud? That is as intended, I feel. Partly because it *feels* like what has actually happened is that they've decided she has a reasonable right to citizenship elsewhere (since Bangladesh refutes this), therefore she must have been... naturalised? But.. that's not right?

This goes to show how fragile all this is, and why the distinction between the 'all citizens' and 'naturalised citizens' versions of the power is potentially less significant than is made out. The UK govt decided Begum was a dual national, against what the other nation said.

Nevertheless, the point remains that part 15 of my original explainer thread is missing the middle bit: any citizen can be deprived if conducive to the public good AND it won't make them stateless;

but only naturalised citizens can be deprived even if it *does* make them stateless, so long as the HO thinks there are rsable grounds that the person cld get citizenship elsewhere.

For the shockingly little that's worth - if they want shot of you, they'll find a way.

(It was the SIAC, not the Supreme Court, which made the findings I've incorrectly attributed to the UKSC above, re Bangladeshi citizenship and statelessness. See here: freemovement.org.uk/court-of-appea…

I'm very, very tired. )