For your information:
Tonight, Priti Patel, the UK Home Secretary, announced the new Nationality & Borders Bill will be introduced to the UK Parliament next week. As outlined in Chapter 3 of the New Plan for Immigration.
Link to Chapter 3 pdf only:
Link to entire pdf:
The bill contains our issue: the denial of nationality & citizenship rights to illegitimate children born abroad to British Overseas Territories Fathers (before 1 July 2006) & Mothers (before 1 January 1983).
A key part of this bill is not related to our issue; it's about the controversial UK Asylum changes. Our issue is likely to get 'drowned out by the noise generated around the asylum provisions. We are already seeing this in newspaper reports and the lack of any comments from Social Justice nationality & citizenship organizations; we simply don't get a mention! We guess it's not a "hot button" enough of an issue.
To us, it is an important issue. It's about reuniting families and removing grossly unfair historical discrimination. No government should ever get to decide that one part of a child's DNA is not valid or blocked from being officially recognized. You cannot cut off one part of the family tree and pretend it does not exist! A child is created by two adults. Nationality identity recognition is key to a person knowing who they are and their roots. It cannot and must not be erased from history!
UK mainland fathers and their illegitimate children born abroad had the same problem corrected back in 2014; BOT children and parents were intentionally left out of those amendments to the BNA 1981. We now have a chance to correct this.
To shore up support for our part, we ask the UK Diaspora and other overseas territories supporters to reach out to local UK MP's through email or Twitter ( to find your local MP, use this link: https://members.parliament.uk/members/commons ) to let them know that we need their strong support to ensure a complete and speedily passage for our part of the bill through the parliamentary process.
It is truly a bi-partisan issue, and there is no reason why they all cannot support our changes.
This historical discrimination has gone on for way too long. Now it's a chance to fix it once and for all—restoring fairness and inclusion in the British Nationality Act 1981.
For more information on our campaign website. Check out our "News & Blog" tab for updates: www.botccampaign.org
Twitter Post:
Comments