My new website/blog: Campaign for Citizenship Equality

Please support my Campaign for Citizenship Equality.

I'm eligible for British citizenship by descent but refuse to apply because of unfair conditions.

I have set up a new website to address the ongoing inequality regarding the right to claim unconditional British citizenship by anyone with a British parent.


http://britishbydescent.wordpress.com/

and a blog

You can follow my campaign on Twitter too:

https://twitter.com/BritbyDescent

Good news regarding British citizenship for children born abroad to British mothers!

When I was on Twitter today, I noticed some new 'tweets' (posts) from Harriet Harman and was stunned to read these particular messages:

Talked to the Home Sec. We are going to scrap registration fee for nationality for British via mother from next year. Sweet tweet success

Equality Bill through the House of Lords. Great milestone for further progress on equality.

To say I am very pleased would be an understatement! I have been campaigning on twitter quite extensively to get the unfair law changed regarding British citizenship for children born abroad to British mothers.

In particular, I've addressed tweets directly to Harriet Harman (she is not just the deputy PM but also the Minister for Women & Equality) asking her how she can justify the inequality in the Borders, Immigration & Citizenship Bill, and had several replies from her with assurances that she would "get on to it". I was hopeful that the inequality would finally be addressed but since she also told me she couldn't give me a timescale, I could only keep watch on the situation and wait and see what happened.

After reading the tweets from Ms Harman today, I am very confident now that we (the adult children born abroad to British mothers) will finally get the same automatic right to claim British citizenship that children of British fathers have always had. I'm not sure about the details - why Harriet Harman states "from next year" for example - but hopefully the necessary changes to the law are at least starting to be put in place.

This news is very good news indeed! Thank you to everyone for all your support in this campaign and particularly thanks to everyone who has signed the petition started by Mrs Elizabeth Peterson.

I will be keeping a close eye on how this change to the law progresses. This blatant inequality must be corrected and I'm not going to stop my campaign for citizenship equality until it is.

Edited to add:
It would appear that I was too hasty in making this announcement because in fact nothing has changed yet. While it's true that Harriet Harman did make a promise via Twitter, it doesn't look like any changes to the law were instigated. And now that we have a new government, I can only deduce that we have to start our campaign all over again for citizenship equality. I apologise if I raised anyone's hopes that this issue was resolved.

I am closing comments to this particular post now.

Please see this Related Post for latest news:
People born before 1983 to British mothers

Guardian's Liberty Clinic - query about British citizenship

From the Guardian's Liberty Clinic How can I be discriminated against because of my mother's gender? The actual question was: "How can the the Borders, Immigration & Citizenship Bill - with its gender and age discrimination - be legal?" The answer from Emma Norton, a legal officer at Liberty, is quite disappointing and not very helpful or encouraging. And she had the gall to brag about how "Liberty welcomed this change in the law which removed this historic discrimination against those who wished to claim citizenship through their mother." The law has been amended but the discrimination has not been removed! We (the children born abroad to British mothers) finally are eligible to apply for British citizenship but it means we "have a right to register as a British citizen" and we have to pay £540 , and attend a citizenship ceremony before we can claim our British citizenship by descent! Liberty is also known as the National Council for Civil Liberties. Founded in 1934, we are a cross party, non-party membership organisation at the heart of the movement for fundamental rights and freedoms in England and Wales. We promote the values of individual human dignity, equal treatment and fairness as the foundations of a democratic society. Well, I certainly don't consider this very unfair path to citizenship with its conditions (registration, fee and ceremony) to be equal treatment or fair! The comments following Ms Norton's reply are very interesting. I suggest everyone reads the comments if they want to understand exactly why this issue of inequality regarding British citizenship is so very unfair. The MPs are guilty of passing a blatantly discriminatory Bill for passage into law. They should all be very ashamed.