RECENT UK legislation related to British citizenship could soon apply in Jersey.
Chief Minister Lyndon Farnham has lodged a proposition to extend the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, British Nationality Act 2023 and British Citizenship Act 2024, as well as some other historic British nationality legislation, to the Island.
The laws are most likely to affect people living in Jersey who are migrants or refugees – but the report accompanying Deputy Farnham’s proposition states that those changes will be positive.
For those seeking to apply for citizenship, their rights would be enhanced, certain restrictions would be waived in particular situations, with historical anomalies corrected.
The British Nationality Act 1981, which sets out how a person can become a British citizen, already applies to Jersey and other Crown Dependencies.
States Members are due to debate approving the extensions in October. Adopting the laws – a process that involves the Royal Court – would allow Jersey to remain aligned with the UK.
“Constitutionally, it is appropriate that matters of nationality and British Citizenship are determined in Jersey in the same way as in the United Kingdom,” Deputy Farnham said in the accompanying report.
Which UK laws could become Jersey laws?
The Nationality and Borders Act 2022, which became law on 28 April 2022, contains provisions about nationality, asylum and immigration which are relevant to the Island because it is a Crown Dependency and it is in the “Common Travel Area”.
It was the cornerstone of the Conservative government’s New Plan for Immigration and focuses on penalising refugees who travel to the UK through “irregular” means.
Part one, which is relevant to Jersey, sets out some altered criteria for becoming a British overseas territories citizen, powers of the Secretary of State relating to citizenship, and the registration of stateless minors.
The British Nationality (Regularisation of Past Practice) Act 2023 is less wide-ranging and tackles a very specific historical anomaly. This Act makes a change to the British Nationality Act 1981 to clarify the status of people born in the UK to EU, EEA and Swiss nationals between specified dates.
Under that BNA 1981, an individual born in the UK is a British citizen automatically from birth where one of their parents is British or settled here. Between 1 January 1983 and 1 October 2000, EU, EEA and Swiss nationals were considered settled if they were living in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland and exercising a free-movement right there.
The British Nationality (Regularisation of Past Practice) Act 2023 confirms this position in law, and it therefore protects the nationality rights of people born in the UK to a parent who was considered settled on the basis of exercising a free-movement right, and those who registered or naturalised as British citizens on the basis of that policy.
The change does not create “new” British citizens, but protects the citizenship of individuals who were long considered British already under established Home Office policy.
The British Nationality (Irish Citizens) Act 2024 makes the provision for Irish citizens who have been resident in the United Kingdom for five years to be entitled to British citizenship. The route to gaining that citizenship will be similar to the existing route for British nationals under the BNA 1981. Deputy Farnham also referred to the extension of a number of other historic laws as a matter of “housekeeping”.
