A new report has raised alarm that millions of British Muslims may be vulnerable to losing their nationality under the UK’s broad and largely opaque citizenship deprivation laws.
The study, released on Thursday by the Runnymede Trust in partnership with Reprieve, describes these powers as excessive and lacking transparency, reports Middle East Eye.
According to the findings, nearly nine million people, about 13 percent of the UK population, fall within the legal scope of having their citizenship removed by decision of the home secretary.
Advocacy groups argue that these measures do not impact all communities equally, instead placing a heavier burden on people with family roots in South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, with Muslim communities facing the greatest exposure.
Current legislation allows the government to withdraw British citizenship if it believes an individual may qualify for another nationality, even when that person has never lived in, or feels any connection to, the other country.
The report contends that this framework has effectively created a tiered model of citizenship, where the sense of security enjoyed by white Britons is not extended to Muslims, drawing parallels with the injustices revealed by the Windrush scandal.
“The previous government stripped British trafficking victims of citizenship for political gain, and the current government has just expanded these extreme and secretive powers,” Reprieve’s Maya Foa told Middle East Eye.
“The nine million people whose rights could be taken away by the next home secretary have every reason to be worried about what a full authoritarian government might do,” she said.
Shabna Begum, director of the Runnymede Trust, warned of what she described as an increasingly disturbing pattern of citizenship removal being exercised with minimal oversight.
“Just like the legislation which caused the Windrush scandal, there are no effective checks to prevent these powers from being used widely,” Begum said.
“Citizenship is a right, not a privilege… setting a dangerous precedent that someone’s citizenship can be removed on ‘good’ or ‘bad’ behaviour, no matter how many generations your family has lived in this country.”
The report’s data indicates that around 60 percent of people of colour could potentially be subject to citizenship deprivation, compared with just five percent of white Britons. Overall, people of colour face a risk that is 12 times higher, with those connected to countries such as India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh among the most affected. Since 2010, more than 200 people, most of them Muslim have lost their citizenship on the grounds that it was “conducive to the public good”.
Researchers also documented cases in which people were incorrectly presumed to hold entitlement to another nationality, resulting in them being left without any citizenship for extended periods.
One of the most well-known examples remains Shamima Begum, whose alleged Bangladeshi citizenship was explicitly rejected by the Bangladeshi authorities.
In response, Runnymede Trust and Reprieve are urging the government to halt the use of citizenship deprivation immediately, repeal Section 40(2) of the British Nationality Act, and reinstate citizenship for those already impacted.
Without such changes, the organisations caution, the UK risks entrenching what they describe as a permanent “two-tier system of belonging”.
