The Mail reports that the Home Office is looking at ways of denying Anna Chapman – who has British citizenship thanks to her four-year marriage to kiss-and-tell husband Alex – from re-entering the UK, as is apparently her wish.
Err, no, sorry, it doesn\’t work that way.
If you are a British citizen then you have the right of residence in Britain. That\’s what it means.
No, no one gets to say that such citizenship or residence is a gift, an allowance or a permission. It\’s a right: once granted that is. To make it revokable is to do what the Soviets did.
So, the Home Office can fuck off quite frankly.
Sorry, but you’re wrong. It is possible to revoke British Citizenship – there’s even a Home Office form for it, but you would need to show that this had been obtained by deception i.e. she had lied on the original application or that the preceeding Indefinite Leave to Remain had been gained by deception.
So unless her ex-husband is going to risk prison by claiming he knowingly took part in an illegal marriage or she was already married, the Home Office are wasting their time.
The process is also likely to take months so in the meantime she is free to return to the UK and fight her case, if necessary. Of course, she might to subject to endless investigation by MI6 etc if she did.
What an unpopular move! I can think of at least half the population who would be quite happy to have her back in the country. Besides, she could be quite an asset to the intelligence services. It’s not like she could go underground again.
She’ll have a tough time once she’s back though.
Will: exactly. They get the hot Russian spy-lady, and we get an ageing ex-KGB man. Who got the better deal here?
She should be treated like any other immigrant, if she has the skills needed for the benefit of this country then there is no reason she should not be allowed to stay.
A fully trained and capable female spy, what the f*ck are they thinking by refusing her, she’s gold dust (obviously only if working for us).
She’s a bit compromised as a honey trap agent, though.
Didn’t she marry under a false identity? If so, does that not mean that both the marriage and citizenship are null and void?
Actually, the situation is no longer as Tim describes. The 1986 Immigration, Asylum, and Nationality Act pretty much gives the Home Secretary carte blanche to revoke the British Citizenship of anyone who holds another nationality and where it is considered “conducive to the public good” for them to be deprived of British citizenship. The courts have a history of interpreting statues of this sort narrowly, and decisions may well be struck down if the Home Office is seen to do this in an inconsistent way, but the law is on the books. A truly disgraceful law, in my opinion, but on the books.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration,_Asylum_and_Nationality_Act_2006#Citizenship_and_Right_of_Abode
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article1082946.ece
Before this act, the only way to deny citizenship to a naturalised person was to demonstrate that the naturalisation was obtained under false pretences. This could include lying on the application form, hence the long and involved set of questions about criminal records, whether you are a communist etc etc etc one often has to answer on such forms. (The Americans are particularly extreme in this regard). If one is later stripped of citizenship, then this occurs due to the lying rather than the actual act being lied about. Therefore things you do after being naturalised have traditionally not been justification for being stripped of citizenship. The 2006 act changes this though.
Trying to prove that her marriage was merely for citizenship purposes seems pointless to me unless you can find documentary evidence that she said it was at the time, given that her husband clearly did live together as man and wife for quite some time.
It may be that Ms Chapman was asked on the form whether she was involved in espionage / an agent of a foreign government when she was naturalised. If she said “no” when the reality was “yes”, then depriving her of British citizenship would be uncontroversial. However, if she only became a spy later, this wouldn’t work.
The Home Office has also being trying to replace permanent residence (“Indefinite Leave to Remain”), which at present is the intermediate stage between a restricted visa and citizenship with something called “Probationary Citizenship”, which can be easily revoked. The point is that the courts have had a nasty tendency to insist that “indefinite” genuinely does mean “indefinite” and that this status thus cannot be arbitrarily taken from people, and the bureaucrats don’t like this. Ideally, the new government would tell the bureaucrats in the Home Office responsible for this to go fuck themselves at the dole office, but the verdict is still out on this.
Let the hot spy in, she’ll be doing photoshoots in Nuts within a couple of years.
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“Actually, the situation is no longer as Tim describes. The 1986 Immigration, Asylum, and Nationality Act pretty much gives the Home Secretary carte blanche to revoke the British Citizenship of anyone who holds another nationality and where it is considered “conducive to the public good” for them to be deprived of British citizenship. The courts have a history of interpreting statues of this sort narrowly, and decisions may well be struck down if the Home Office is seen to do this in an inconsistent way, but the law is on the books. A truly disgraceful law, in my opinion, but on the books.”
An excellent law IMHO. Hopefully we can get rid of Abu Hamza using it.
However with regard to Ann Chapman – did she say that she was a Russian Citizen when she applied? I would guess not. If she didn’t then she should lose her citizenship as she committed fraud.
Personally I would change the law on immigration giving people British citizenship only if they a) did not lie to come in this country (so bogus asylum seekers can lose their citizenship if they turn out to have lied to come and b) that they promise to be law abiding citizens – if they then break the law they can lose their British citizenship.
I would of course only let immigrants who are not criminals, parasites or Muslims come here.
Tim adds: David, not sure whether that’s racist or religiousist but it shames you that you’ve said it.
It’s a done deal;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/10620352.stm
people in the forum would rather keep a white spy who would sell your country than guy who practice freedom of speach who happen to be in a another race- truly racist coutry..