Abu Hamza - Once a citizen, always a citizen ...
Discussion
Calls to deport the Islamist preacher Abu Hamza reveal the threat to the status of all naturalised Britons in the new immigration act, says Sarah Left
In line with the demands of tabloid newspapers, the radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza could be stripped of his British citizenship and deported, presumably to Egypt, if the government decides to invoke the powers of immigration laws due to come into effect in April.
Mr Hamza is unlikely to inspire widespread sympathy if the home secretary follows the course of action recommended by the Labour MP Andrew Dismore: "Strip him of the British citizenship he so obviously despises, swiftly followed by his deportation." He is wanted on terrorist charges in Yemen, after all.
However, MPs should beware calling for British citizens - and Mr Hamza has been a citizen for over 20 years - to be shipped back to their purported homelands.
The concept of grace-and-favour citizenship should ring alarm bells for all of us who have been naturalised British. Certainly citizenship should not be granted to all comers, but it should never be taken away once granted. To do so dilutes the meaning of citizenship for the naturalised.
As someone who waited 18 months from application to naturalisation, I can affirm that citizenship is not handed out lightly (unless your last name is Hinduja and you made a sizeable donation to the Labour party).
Those married to British nationals, as Mr Hamza was, must be resident in the UK for three years before making an application. The home office will then take anything from a few weeks to, in my case, a year and a half to grant citizenship. For those not related to a British national, the process is even longer.
In the course of that time, the Home Office has ample opportunity to check each applicant's background, first when granting indefinite leave to remain, and again when considering whether to award citizenship. In 2001, the Home Office turned down 9,530 people.
After being made a citizen of a country, you should never again have to worry about being booted off the team. If the government believes a British citizen has broken British laws, he or she should be tried in our courts and held in our prisons if found guilty.
Revoking citizenship is a weasel way out. Not every citizen is a credit to this nation, but when, say, Jeffrey Archer embarrassed the Conservative party by committing criminal acts, he was imprisoned. No one mentioned exile.
As a Home Office spokesman put it to me, if a "normal, vanilla-flavoured Brit" had done something wrong, the justice system would simply "bang them up in prison". The implication is that naturalised citizens have a lesser status than those born to British parents.
The new legislation, under article 4 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act, creates a second class of citizen by making it easier for the home secretary to revoke naturalisation. This perpetuates the belief that naturalised British citizens are not truly British, citizenship classes or no.
Even in the isolated case of Mr Hamza, exporting the problem makes no sense. If the British government believes Mr Hamza poses a threat to the UK or its citizens, then keep him in the UK, where police can track his movements and monitor his associates. If he has broken a law, arrest him. If he is found guilty, imprison him.
Barring criminal behaviour, the UK needs to tolerate the views of all its citizens - however they came about that status, and however uncomfortable the views - rather than sweeping the problem under a foreign carpet.
In line with the demands of tabloid newspapers, the radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza could be stripped of his British citizenship and deported, presumably to Egypt, if the government decides to invoke the powers of immigration laws due to come into effect in April.
Mr Hamza is unlikely to inspire widespread sympathy if the home secretary follows the course of action recommended by the Labour MP Andrew Dismore: "Strip him of the British citizenship he so obviously despises, swiftly followed by his deportation." He is wanted on terrorist charges in Yemen, after all.
However, MPs should beware calling for British citizens - and Mr Hamza has been a citizen for over 20 years - to be shipped back to their purported homelands.
The concept of grace-and-favour citizenship should ring alarm bells for all of us who have been naturalised British. Certainly citizenship should not be granted to all comers, but it should never be taken away once granted. To do so dilutes the meaning of citizenship for the naturalised.
As someone who waited 18 months from application to naturalisation, I can affirm that citizenship is not handed out lightly (unless your last name is Hinduja and you made a sizeable donation to the Labour party).
Those married to British nationals, as Mr Hamza was, must be resident in the UK for three years before making an application. The home office will then take anything from a few weeks to, in my case, a year and a half to grant citizenship. For those not related to a British national, the process is even longer.
In the course of that time, the Home Office has ample opportunity to check each applicant's background, first when granting indefinite leave to remain, and again when considering whether to award citizenship. In 2001, the Home Office turned down 9,530 people.
After being made a citizen of a country, you should never again have to worry about being booted off the team. If the government believes a British citizen has broken British laws, he or she should be tried in our courts and held in our prisons if found guilty.
Revoking citizenship is a weasel way out. Not every citizen is a credit to this nation, but when, say, Jeffrey Archer embarrassed the Conservative party by committing criminal acts, he was imprisoned. No one mentioned exile.
As a Home Office spokesman put it to me, if a "normal, vanilla-flavoured Brit" had done something wrong, the justice system would simply "bang them up in prison". The implication is that naturalised citizens have a lesser status than those born to British parents.
The new legislation, under article 4 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act, creates a second class of citizen by making it easier for the home secretary to revoke naturalisation. This perpetuates the belief that naturalised British citizens are not truly British, citizenship classes or no.
Even in the isolated case of Mr Hamza, exporting the problem makes no sense. If the British government believes Mr Hamza poses a threat to the UK or its citizens, then keep him in the UK, where police can track his movements and monitor his associates. If he has broken a law, arrest him. If he is found guilty, imprison him.
Barring criminal behaviour, the UK needs to tolerate the views of all its citizens - however they came about that status, and however uncomfortable the views - rather than sweeping the problem under a foreign carpet.
Regardless of the technical consequences it has for the perception of the validity of naturalised citizens, l think taking away his citizenship and deporting him back into all kinds of trouble is somehow quite a beautiful move...
Keeping it as a one off would rub it in nicely.
However l do agree that we shouldn't be in the business of deporting citizens. We should concentrate on removing illegals.
Keeping it as a one off would rub it in nicely.
However l do agree that we shouldn't be in the business of deporting citizens. We should concentrate on removing illegals.
cnh1990 said: We like to have some nice friendly inmates make him their girl friend for while.
Calvin
Bloody hell! Abu Hamza as a lady boy?
Funnily enough, I can actually see the arguments against deportation, from a civil libertarian point of view.
Far better for the secret service to
the toe rag, as they should many more disloyal dogs. Splendid!
Legal bollocks aside, becoming a citizen means making a commitment to abide by a given system. In the US you make an explicit commitment which does not include anything about creating a fundamentalist muslim state. I assume (but dont know) that the same is true for UK citizenship. If someone steps outside of that system by campaigning to destroy it, then its officially OK to suspend legal bollocks.
Far better for the secret service to the toe rag, as they should many more disloyal dogs.
Splendid!
Hard to disagree with you regarding Haamza, but that sentiment is a dangerous one. Who else is up aginst the wall when the derestrictor slave camps are instituted then eh
How many copies of the guardian in my house will qualify me for a one way trip to the gulags? 
seriously though, the article does have a point, it isn't easy for somone arriving in this country to gain the rights of citizenship.
Reading some of our less well reasoned rags it would appear that all you have to do is set foot on blighty to become a fully paid up member of the MCC.
The fact that it is a drawn out process to gain citizenship is as it should be. People who settle here and make a (legal!) contribution to society should eventually gain citizenship. That seems fair and reasonable.
As others have said by all means lets concentrate on getting rid of those who have no right to be here. Opening up a big row on citizenship over this wanted criminal is just going to give him a platform to fight 'injustice'.
Obviously if there is a technical way of deporting Hamza it might be in our interests to do so.
Much better perhaps if Hamza really is involved in organising terrorism ( rather than just having 0 brain cells and a big mouth ) to keep him in a uk jail at our expense so we know where he is with and who he is associating with, peace of mind is worth paying for... As they say keep your friends close.....
Labour MP Andrew Dismore: "Strip him of the British citizenship he so obviously despises, swiftly followed by his deportation." He is wanted on terrorist charges in Yemen, after all.
Right, so if I emigrated to America and married an American national and got citizenship I would never be deported back to blighty.
Not even if I murdered a few people prior to my departure and it took the cops 15 years to put the case together.
If the UK cops wanted me for a crime (such as terrorism) then I would have assumed the USA would simply have handed me over.
I say ship him to Yemen ASAP. Watch him hang.....
Andy
Bloody hell Umar B! Thats almost as radical an idea as id have come out with!
Still, i have to agree with you, he is a total Ars*hole!
Deportation to a country like the Yemen where theyd just Love to see him, would be payback enough.
After all, he has been preaching some god awful things.
good riddance to him!
Still, i have to agree with you, he is a total Ars*hole!
Deportation to a country like the Yemen where theyd just Love to see him, would be payback enough.
After all, he has been preaching some god awful things.
good riddance to him!
andytk said:If the UK cops wanted me for a crime (such as terrorism) then I would have assumed the USA would simply have handed me over.
I say ship him to Yemen ASAP. Watch him hang.....
Andy
Trouble is the Eu Nanny state forbids the extradition of a person if they face a posible death penalty ,no matter what the crime is ,,,
Mr Tony, with respect - I have to disagree with your sentiment about this git.
He is a blatant traitor.
In France, I think he may have suffered accidental defenstration from the observation gallery atop Le Tower Eiffel.
In Spain, a toreador's sword might have indavertently severed a critical artery during a freak break out of bulls during carnival time.
In Germany, he would have slipped rather inconveniently next to a huge, open, industrial Becks fermentation vessel.
Here, we, the threatened subjects, seek to excuse his treachery and actually consider putting him up at HM's pleasure and our cost as taxpayers because we lack the simple conviction of a basic truth - you can't always negotiate with some mentalities - and at some point, the possibility that they might constitute some distinct 'enemy of the state' type threat, should not prevent us from defending ourselves.
I do hear the calls for equivalence under the eyes of the law viz a vis the naturalisation/deportation quandry but I am simply concerned that we are way too tolerant of blatant treachery.
If that makes me an extremist then fine.
P.S. I could never conceive of Groniad proscrption; I love it's barely concealed left wing agenda and solidairity with the socialist precepts governing social engineering - excellent fodder for those of us with a mini statuette of Bomber Harris in the vestibule.
Chin, chin.
He is a blatant traitor.
In France, I think he may have suffered accidental defenstration from the observation gallery atop Le Tower Eiffel.
In Spain, a toreador's sword might have indavertently severed a critical artery during a freak break out of bulls during carnival time.
In Germany, he would have slipped rather inconveniently next to a huge, open, industrial Becks fermentation vessel.
Here, we, the threatened subjects, seek to excuse his treachery and actually consider putting him up at HM's pleasure and our cost as taxpayers because we lack the simple conviction of a basic truth - you can't always negotiate with some mentalities - and at some point, the possibility that they might constitute some distinct 'enemy of the state' type threat, should not prevent us from defending ourselves.
I do hear the calls for equivalence under the eyes of the law viz a vis the naturalisation/deportation quandry but I am simply concerned that we are way too tolerant of blatant treachery.
If that makes me an extremist then fine.
P.S. I could never conceive of Groniad proscrption; I love it's barely concealed left wing agenda and solidairity with the socialist precepts governing social engineering - excellent fodder for those of us with a mini statuette of Bomber Harris in the vestibule.
Chin, chin.
In France, I think he may have suffered accidental defenstration from the observation gallery atop Le Tower Eiffel.
Unfortunately this is a bit of an over enthusiastic view of what would happen if we had a similarly reknown muslim integrist.
Because the police and the justice do not work together judges are afraid of possible reprisals from people going in court, hence the ones who go to jail mostly are the poor persons who were at the wrong place at the wrong time but very seldom the true terrorists...
Letting the religious integrists express their radical ideas and their hatred towards western countries may help in controlling their acts...but letting them preach on the public way helps attracting "simple"/"lost" souls into the "jihad"...
Thom,
Judging by the apparent enthusiasm of your authorities to dislodge squatting eco-migrants from their pre-British assault in illicit Normandy locations, I'm sure the French intelligence community would employ their equivalent of Chicago's underworld 'Big Sal' problem solver in such cases.
Nobody would bat an eye.
Judging by the apparent enthusiasm of your authorities to dislodge squatting eco-migrants from their pre-British assault in illicit Normandy locations, I'm sure the French intelligence community would employ their equivalent of Chicago's underworld 'Big Sal' problem solver in such cases.
Nobody would bat an eye.
derestrictor said:enthusiasm of your authorities to dislodge squatting eco-migrants from their pre-British assault in illicit Normandy locations
Unfortunately this is the only thing they do effectively because that is what the journalists are interested in shooting: gettind rid of people who cannot seriously defend themselves by affording decent lawyers...
The really dangerous persons (local imams) who have an impact on a local public are NEVER threatened.
Thom said:
The really dangerous persons (local imams) who have an impact on a local public are NEVER threatened.
Maybe they should look up Edward Woodward; the dispatchment of undesirables with eminent style, all in the half light of a series III Jag 4.2 headlight main beam.
(Sorry; an attack of the Leviticus.)
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