[marcus_holmes]

> Taking citizenship away from those who voluntarily join terrorist organizations like ISIS? 100% agree with this, how could you not?

Given the UK's recent use of anti-terrorist legislation to arbitrarily classify a protest organisation as terrorists, this is really dangerous. If the government can classify any organisation as terrorists, and then remove citizenship from any members of that organisation, that is horrifying.

So yes, I very, very, strongly disagree with this measure, for very good reasons. How could anyone with any common sense support it?

[FirmwareBurner]

>Given the UK's recent use of anti-terrorist legislation to arbitrarily classify a protest organisation as terrorists

If your current laws allow for such oppressive abuse on the population without due process, then these new laws won't make things any worse for the people and you're fighting the wrong things here, if you think that taking citizenship away form registered ISIS members is the biggest problem.

[marcus_holmes]

I disagree completely. Citizens are protected by laws, such as the First Amendment, that are not applied to non-citizens (see the Julian Assange mess for details). If the government can designate a group of people as terrorists, and remove their citizenships for being terrorists, then they can additionally apply yet more tribulations on those people while not straying out of the legal protections afforded to citizens.

You keep saying "ISIS" like it's some magic incantation that makes everything else OK. Try saying "any organisation the government disapproves of" instead, and see how that fits your mental model of what's acceptable. For example:

> you're fighting the wrong things here, if you think that taking citizenship away from any organisation that the government disapproves of is the biggest problem.

I think you'll agree that this would be a big f**ing problem.

[FirmwareBurner]

> You keep saying "ISIS" like it's some magic incantation that makes everything else OK. Try saying "any organisation the government disapproves of" instead, and see how that fits your mental model of what's acceptable.

Which other organizations who didn't kill or committed acts of violence to people in order to be wrongly considered terrorists by the government in the same vein as ISIS was?

>I think you'll agree that this would be a big f*ing problem.

It isn't. In most western democracies, if not all, gaining dual citizenship via naturalization is a voluntary privilege, not a right, that can always be revoked for crimes such as being part of a terrorist group. It's part of the contract you sign when you apply for citizenship. As it should be. That's who the law is targeting.

Your primary citizenship gained via by birth or by descent cannot be taken away from you almost anywhere.

[marcus_holmes]

Precisely my point about terrorist organisations; Palestine Action did not kill anyone, yet the UK considers them to be the same category of organisation as ISIS.

If I read this right, you're thinking that only naturalised citizens would be affected by such a law; those with dual nationality that can be "sent back to where they came from". Which explains why you think this is a good idea.

That's not how citizenship works. If you allow for removing citizenship, then all citizens, regardless of "primary" nationality, can be made non-citizens. There's no second-class citizenship that can be revoked while still retaining a first-class citizenship that cannot.

[avianlyric]

> Your primary citizenship gained via by birth or by descent cannot be taken away from you almost anywhere.

I’m sorry but you’re badly misinformed here. There is no concept of “primary citizenship”, you’re either a citizen or you’re not. If your government has a right to strip your citizenship, then mechanism by which you acquired citizenship is relevant. The whole point of citizenship is to declare that everyone with citizenship has identical rights and protections from their government.

There has been one person in the UK who had her citizenship revoked for joining ISIS. She was a born in UK, and was a British citizen from birth by right of decency. She is now stateless, a citizen of no country. These are the actual laws you’re defending, the hypothetical laws that only apply to naturalised citizens don’t exist, and aren’t being proposed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamima_Begum

[FirmwareBurner]

No, it is you who are misinformed. According to your Wikipedia link she was a dual citizen so the UK had the legal rights to strip her of her British one and she was left with her Bangladeshi citizenship, so not stateless.

>However, the UK government contended that Begum was a dual national, also holding citizenship of Bangladesh, and was not therefore made stateless by the decision.

>However, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission found that as a matter of the Bangladeshi nationality law, Begum also holds Bangladeshi citizenship through her parents, under section 5 of the Citizenship Act, 1951.

[avianlyric]

She was born in the UK as a UK citizens to parents that were naturalised UK citizens. By your definition her “primary” citizenship was British. That was where she was born, that was where she grew up, that was the first citizenship she gained.

Due to her parent Bangladeshi origins, she had a separate right to claim Bangladeshi citizenship, but at the point she lost her British citizenship had not claim that right. She has also never lived in Bangladesh, and has never held a Bangladeshi passport.

At the time UK was going to remove her citizenship, Bangladesh said the following:

> The Government of Bangladesh stated that Begum did not currently hold Bangladeshi citizenship and, without it, would not be allowed to enter Bangladesh.

You’ve made some pretty silly claims about countries not removing people’s “primary” citizenship. Begum is quite clearly a case where their “primary” citizenship based on the parameters you provided, was her British citizenship, and the UK has quite clearly stripped her of that citizenship. Bangladesh has also refused to acknowledge her as a citizen, which seems a lot fair that the UKs stance, given she’s never lived, worked, or paid taxes in Bangladesh, so it not clear why they should be responsible for her, rather than the country where she was born and raised.