Nationality: A Bill of Wrongs?
| Author | Rosalie Wyatt |
| DOI | 10.1177/026455058102800208 |
| Date | 01 June 1981 |
| Published date | 01 June 1981 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Nationality: A Bill of Wrongs?
ROSALIE WYATT
Probation Officer, Acton
The writer outlines some of the details of the British Nationality Bill,
and what she sees as the likely damaging and discriminatory effects
should it become law. She suggests that NAPO should have taken
a more vigorous stance on an issue affecting the rights of some of
our clients. (Written March ’81.)
In the Queen’s speech, this govern-
Nationality Law will underwrite and
ment renewed its commitment to
institutionalise
further the racism
enacting a new British Nationality
implicit in the 1971 Immigration Act.
Law, largely based on proposals in the
This is an issue that Trades Unions
White Paper of July ’80. The British
must take up, in the interests of
Nationality Bill was passed on second
thousands of their members, whose
reading in February and is now in
status may be changed overnight.
committee. Far from rationalising the
Sexual Equality is conceded ... at
current law, the Bill proposes a com-
a cost. The rights and advantages of
plex 3-tier system in which only
men are reduced. In future either a
those referred to as ’British Citizens’
non-British man marrying a British
(exactly equivalent to patrials as
woman, or a non-British woman
defined in the ’71 Immigration Act)
marrying a British man, will acquire
would have the right of entry and
on marriage only the possibility, at
abode in the UK. The rest would have
the Home Secretary’s discretion, of
virtually
meaningless
passports,
becoming British after three years’
limited consular protection overseas,
marriage:
if any, or even no citizenship to trans-
Civil Rights duties and responsibili-
mit to descendants, who would be
ties are not defined in the Bill and,
bom stateless. Britain is party to inter-
despite numerous representations to
national conventions for the reduction
governments since 1977, there is to
of statelessness, yet this proposed law
be no right of appeal against refusal
would generate stateless persons.
of...
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