A Dangerous and Chauvinist Mishmash

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Immigration White Paper:
A Dangerous and Chauvinist Mishmash

The stated aim of the White Paper "Secure Borders, Safe Haven: Integration with diversity in modern Britain" is to integrate an approach to economic immigrants, asylum seekers and new citizens. However, in doing so, the White Paper is mixing up entirely different issues and putting forward proposals which are detrimental to each of these questions. If an integrated approach is to be taken, then first of all the approach to the separate issues must be just and dispassionate. However, the "integrated approach" put forward by the Home Office results in a dangerous, racist and chauvinist mishmash of the treatment of immigration, asylum seeking and citizenship. For good measure, the White Paper in dealing with citizenship also mixes this up with the issue of nationality, as previous citizenship/nationality Acts have done, and this is at the heart of the chauvinism of the proposals. It seems that the government has taken the opportunity, faced with the necessity to take a stand on dealing with asylum seeking and immigration in the wake of its Anti-Terrorism legislation, itself arising out of the government's response to September 11, and the concern about its treatment of national minority communities in Britain and of immigrants in particular, to draft objectionable proposals on citizenship. These proposals take further the conceptions of "belonging" and "shared" or "democratic" "values" which it has been elaborating in its policy statements, conceptions which in relation to citizenship fundamentally violate the right to conscience.

It appears that the government has taken together the disturbances which occurred at the time of its election campaign last year, which it tendentiously described as "race riots", and the hysteria it has created over "terrorists" and an "inter-dependent" world in which "democratic values" are under threat as a pretext to draft citizenship proposals in which upholding "common values" is a defining characteristic. In doing so, the proposals would give rise to the curious situation in which immigrants who wish to acquire British citizenship have to swear or affirm to uphold the "democratic values" of the United Kingdom, while clearly there are different views existing amongst existing British citizens as to these "democratic values" and contention between these views. One can only assume that this is a step towards insisting that all citizens who do not subscribe to a particular conception of "democratic values", presumably as defined by the government, are disloyal. Thus the proposals are elaborating the need for an official ideology, which is a basic violation of the right to conscience, and is consistent with the government's ongoing direction to criminalise political protest, dissent, and the right to conscience. Indeed, classes on citizenship in which schoolchildren are expected to learn about the "rights and duties" of citizenship as defined by those in authority are already part of the government's arsenal.

There is undoubtedly a crying need for the modernisation of the conception of citizenship as practised in this country for a number of reasons. Not least of these is that citizenship is still bound up with the conception of "subject", that is, of loyalty to the sovereign. Of all the modernisations required, this is perhaps the most glaring. But it is also perhaps the most far-reaching, since to render citizenship in a modern fashion, setting out constitutionally what rights citizens may enjoy and what duties they must perform, would require the most fundamental transformation of the old constitutional arrangements themselves. Not only would it require at least elements of a written constitution, bringing into the light of day the rights and duties of citizens, as well as of their various collectives, including those of the national minority collectives and the nations at present within the borders of the United Kingdom, but it would challenge the conception that the authority in the land flows from a constitutional sovereign. It could very well be that to pre-empt the move for such a democratic renewal is precisely why the government is proposing to legislate to define citizenship in its anachronistic essence.

If it were to cease mixing up the notions of citizenship and nationality, which it points out has been a feature of legislation on "British nationality" since (at least) 1948, then the government would have to face up to recognising the rights of the nations of Scotland, Wales and England, as well as the Irish as a nation. It would also have to recognise the right of the national minority collectives within Britain to their languages, their culture and their traditions. By mixing up these notions of citizenship and nationality, it lays emphasis on some mystical sense of "belonging" and integration into a spurious "British" nationality. In actual fact, far from being mystical, the implications of this approach are that the outdated and chauvinist values of British colonialism and 19th century liberalism are to be imposed not only on immigrants wishing to acquire British citizenship but on the whole population of the British state.

Because the White Paper takes an integrationist approach to these several questions of immigration, nationality and citizenship, it taints the questions of immigration and acquiring citizenship with this imposition of a "shared sense of belonging and identity", as well as refusing to recognise the rights and duties of existing British citizens. It thus seeks to violate the rights of all concerned.

This attempt to deprive all citizens of their right to conscience is very dangerous. It comes at a time when the British government is also extremely active in trying to impose "Western" democratic values throughout the globe as the only legitimate set of values. The proposals of the Immigration White Paper are quite unacceptable and underline the need for a complete break with the mindset the government is trying to impose nationally and globally.