Why Tommy Robinson came for me on social media

I'm a 'terrorist-appeasing trade unionist' according to the rabble-rousing bigot

I don’t particularly like Tommy Robinson. I have argued in the past that the man is an aggressive bigot who often harms the causes he claims to support.

I know that Robinson is seen by some – especially those concerned at the divisive effects of state-sponsored multiculturalism and the relentless trashing of British history and culture by the progressive class – as some kind of crusader for truth and traditional values. But I just don’t buy it. In my eyes, he is a rabble-rousing convict unworthy of the attention and acclaim he attracts.

I don’t suppose he especially likes me either. In fact, I’m quite sure he doesn’t. For he made clear his feelings about me in a rather caustic post on social media last week.

A ‘terrorist-appeasing trade unionist’ was how he described me to his nearly half a million followers on X (formerly known as Twitter).

So what had I done to warrant such invective?

Well, I had argued that it was wrong for Shamima Begum – the young woman who in 2015, aged 15, travelled to Syria and joined the Islamic State group – to have been stripped of her citizenship by the government. Begum’s appeal against that decision was rejected by the Court of Appeal last week.

I readily acknowledge that many people who are not Tommy Robinson will disagree with my stance on this. But that still does not persuade me that I am wrong.

The first question we must ask ourselves is: can it ever be right, in principle, for a government to strip a person of his or her citizenship? I do not see that it can. In fact, I find the whole concept sinister and authoritarian. Citizenship of a nation for someone born within its boundaries and to parents living therein should not be seen as some kind of conditional privilege that may be snatched away at a given moment by officialdom, but instead as an inalienable and irrevocable right.

I, for example, was born in Barking, east London, to British parents. I am thus a British citizen. Whatever I do in life, whatever decisions I make, however much I may act in ways that offends the authorities or the state, my status as a British citizen (or ‘subject’, if you prefer) should be non-negotiable. No individual or institution – including whichever set of politicians happen to comprise the government of the day – should have the right to interfere with it. I should no more be forcibly stripped of my British citizenship than I should be forcibly stripped of my status as the father to my children or as a son to my parents. These things are innate, not incidental.

As it happens, this is pretty much how the law would see things in my case. As a sole national, there are no circumstances in which anyone could, against my will, remove my citizenship from me. All well and good, then.

But then we come to people who are dual nationals. The government has argued that Begum was such a person, on account of the fact that she held Bangladeshi citizenship through her mother. (The Bangladeshi government has, incidentally, disputed this, and said that it would not welcome her.) In these types of cases, British citizenship is suddenly considered a privilege, not a right – something that may be used as a kind of bargaining chip against the individual and, if necessary, swiped from them.

How can anyone credibly deny that this creates, in effect, a two-tier system of citizenship – and one that treats the sons and daughters of immigrants less favourably? And how is it at all possible to defend such an outcome? 

For what it means is that two children, born in the same hospital on the same day, and who later commit (or allegedly commit) precisely the same crime, may end up being treated wholly differently: the first, as a sole national, gets to keep his or her citizenship, while the second, as a dual national, loses it. Yet the second may be every bit as much British as the first.

I simply do not see how such an arrangement could be perceived as anything less than violently unfair and immoral. Anyone who truly believes in equality before the law ought surely to oppose such discrimination (for that is what it amounts to).   

It is also worth making the point that Begum herself has never been tried in a court of law. Her crimes are not yet crimes – at least not in a formal sense. At the very least, due process ought to take place and the facts – the full facts, not just those reported in the media – should be considered before any determination on her right to remain a British citizen is made. As part of those deliberations, it would not be unreasonable to take into account the fact that she was merely a schoolgirl when she fled to the Middle East, having reportedly been groomed online.

It may well be tempting for us to wash our hands of the likes of Shamima Begum. But, in the end, Begum was a child of Britain. We created her. She is a product of our society. We have no moral right, so far as I can see, to expect another country to bear responsibility for her.

Government arrogating to itself the power to strip individuals of their citizenship may be viewed as a good thing when that power is being exercised against people we don’t like and for whom we have little sympathy. But we should be careful what we wish for. For one day that power may be used against people we do like and for whom we do have sympathy. It may even be used against us.

Expressing this belief may make me an enemy of the Tommy Robinsons of this world. I couldn’t care less. What matters is what’s right.

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