Mass migration has eroded trust. A new citizenship law could restore it
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In a remarkably short space of time Britain has become a radically diverse country. The last census, held three years ago, found ten million of the sixty million people living in England and Wales were born overseas. Of those, 4.2 million had arrived in the preceding ten years. Almost six million hold the citizenship of another country, but not Britain.
It is, as political scientist Yascha Mounk has written, “the great experiment”. Yet remarkably little thought or debate has informed our response to this new reality. Norms of behaviour that were once taken for granted are now challenged by the co-existence of different cultures and nihilistic ideologies. The shared traits and traditions that once allowed us to recognise familiarity in strangers are now shared by fewer of us than before.
When a society cannot, through subtle social signals and those habits that build trust and habits of reciprocity, remain happy and safe in freedom, the state will end up more authoritarian: more laws, more policing, more intrusion. This is unavoidable, for the alternative is criminality, fear and insecurity.
Every day, society and the state contend with this very modern problem with policies and powers – underpinned by unchanged assumptions – that belong in a bygone age. Illegal immigrants and foreign criminals who cannot be deported because we grant them the same maximalist legal rights as the rest of us. Public services that cannot distinguish between those who have contributed and are entitled to use them, and those who should not. Police officers forced to contend with unacceptable and intimidating protests from those who have brought the world’s hatreds with them to our country. Social trust is eroding thanks to these and other trends caused by mass immigration and radical diversity.
In Britain, with its dependence on norms and trust, its dislike of prescriptive government, and its history of easy-going liberalism, the kind of change we need may be difficult to contemplate. But if we want to maintain our shared identity and restore social trust, change is urgently needed, and it will need to come in many ways.
The common thread that runs through this change is a different conception of British citizenship. Historically, the concept of citizenship has involved a deal: I owe my allegiance to my country, and my country affords me the protection it can offer. Implicit, then, is the balance between rights and responsibilities. I have the right to protection, full participation in society, and certain privileges even overseas. But I also have the duty to obey the law, pay my taxes, and if necessary contribute to our collective defence. In other words, to put the common good first. For most of us, this deal is not transactional, but instinctive, informed by our sense of responsibility and love for our country.
Citizenship should be an almost sacred contract between us as individuals and our wider society. But the very idea has been disrespected to the extent that its value is much diminished. This disrespect is informed by old liberal ideas about universalism, which are mistaken because of their careless disregard for the importance of different cultural and institutional contexts, and unavoidable clashes between irreconcilable values and interests. Our freedom does not occur spontaneously: it is the product of a well-ordered society in which, paradoxically, we accept limitations on our freedom.
Influenced by liberal assumptions, the disrespect is now fortified by a mindless modern urge to “be kind”, and the insistence that the whole world wants to be like us: democratic, pluralistic, respectful to women, tolerant of others. China, Russia, the Middle East all demonstrate the absurdity of this claim, but so do events here, from sectarian election campaigning to intolerant bullying by extremists of schools and other public institutions. Only those blinded by ideology can fail to see the truth – but just as those who scream “be kind” are anything but, the argument has long ceased to be reasonable.
If those who have never contributed to the common good, or indeed have actively harmed it, get to enjoy the privileges of citizenship regardless, why should anybody else take their responsibilities seriously? Broken trust kills reciprocity, and without reciprocity we have a harsher and more dangerous society.
So what can be done? A new citizenship law would restore the distinction between citizen and non-citizen in British life. It should, for example, remove voting rights from non-citizens, so we end the absurdity of Irish and Commonwealth nationals enjoying the right to vote here from the day they arrive, while other nationals who might have contributed for years do not. All should wait for British citizenship.
The new law should clarify access to public services and welfare. Citizens and those legally and ordinarily resident should have full access to healthcare and the education system for their children. Migrants applying for a visa with dependent children should pay an education surcharge, consistent with the healthcare equivalent. Those in the country illegally should be barred from all but urgent, life-saving health treatment. Their education and health records should be shared with the immigration authorities.
The criminal law should distinguish between citizen and non-citizen. Building on its policy to strip naturalised Britons of citizenship where they are a threat to national security, the Government should widen its interpretation of “the public good” to allow it to deprive serious criminals who are naturalised citizens too. Human rights laws should be reformed to make clear that they do not apply to those in the country illegally, and only limited rights should apply to non-citizens who have committed serious offences and should be deported.
To make the distinction between citizen and non-citizen a reality, we will need to take bold steps. We would need to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, which has done so much to weaken national citizenship. ID cards would be required to identify who is entitled to what. These changes are contentious, but they are the unavoidable consequence of the society we have become, and they are needed for public safety anyway. If we want a higher trust society, we must respect and reward citizenship far more than we do.
