Dual citizenship could be 'weaponised by a future government'

Rightwing politicians are using extreme immigration cases to make an argument for “two-tier” citizenship that could affect hundreds of thousands of Britons, the head of an immigration thinktank has warned.

- John Simpson Home Affairs Editor

Sunder Katwala, the head of the integration-focused British Future, said that the British passports of dual nationals and settled immigrants risk becoming “provisional” after Conservative and Reform politicians called for an Egyptian-British human rights campaigner to be stripped of his citizenship over historical tweets calling for violence against white people, Zionists and the police.

The prime minister and foreign secretary came under fire last week for celebrating the return to the UK of Alaa Abd el-Fattah, who was born in Egypt and obtained citizenship via his mother, who was born in Britain.

His return came as the European Court of Human Rights questioned the rulings of the British courts to uphold then home secretary Sajid Javid’s decision to strip Shamima Begum of her citizenship in 2019. Begum, now 26, travelled to Syria to join Islamic State (IS) as a child after being groomed online.