It’s a difficult Monday for the Prime Minister. Shortly after Keir Starmer expressed his ‘delight’ that Egyptian dissident Alaa Abd el-Fattah had arrived in the UK, it emerged that the PM’s ‘top priority’ apparently hates Jews, white people and the English most of all, if his past tweet are anything to go by. As a result, the government is now facing demands from Nigel Farage, Kemi Badenoch, and even senior Labour MPs to strip el-Fattah of the citizenship he was granted in 2022 while a prisoner in Egypt.

How plausible is this? In fact, although such demands are very unusual in British politics, the deprivation of citizenship is a long-established ministerial power. Under the 1981 British Nationality Act, the Home Secretary has the right to deprive ‘any British citizen, British Overseas citizen, British National (Overseas), British Protected Person or British Subject’ of their citizenship if they are ‘satisfied that such an action is conducive to the public good’.

British citizenship is more than a piece of paper

This is specifically defined. ‘It is in the public interest to deprive an individual of British........

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