Labour want to bring back auto-birthright citizenship

I didn't agree with the referendum in 2004. I wasn't old enough to vote against it at the time. Populist politics at it's worst. I remember the result being celebrated by the KKK.

I don't think they will garner enough support for repeal, but the mood may change in the future.

biko wrote: »

Countries with jus soli

Interesting.

Since we are forever comparing ourselves to the Utopia that is Scandanavia, perhaps we should stay the course on this one?

If labour want to make themselves more unelectable then this policy is perfect for them.

There are other issues though. Ireland had to get the British - Irish agreement amended to make this change (rather uncontroversial as the Brits wanted to see this back door to the UK closed too). I doubt they'd have any time to see it reopened. In the context of Brexit and borders, it's a total non runner.

But as I said, if labour want to engage in a bit of electoral hari kari, who am I to stop them?

Simi wrote: »

I didn't agree with the referendum in 2004. I wasn't old enough to vote against it at the time. Populist politics at it's worst. I remember the result being celebrated by the KKK.

I don't think they will garner enough support for repeal, but the mood may change in the future.

I don't know how it can be viewed as populist. No other country in the EU offers birthright citizenship. Babies born here acquire the citizenship of one or both their parents so it's not exactly as if they are being born stateless.

There aren't many cases to be found where it could be argued that birthright citizenship should be allowed given how extensive it is possible to gain citizenship; as the info on Wikipedia points out:

"the law was amended to require that at least one of the parents be an Irish citizen; a British citizen; a resident with a permanent right to reside in Ireland or in Northern Ireland; or a legal resident residing three of the last four years in the country (excluding students and asylum seekers) (see Irish nationality law).[49] The amendment was prompted by the case of Man Chen, a Chinese woman living in mainland United Kingdom who travelled to Belfast (Northern Ireland, part of the UK) to give birth in order to benefit from the previous rule whereby anyone born on any part of the island of Ireland was automatically granted Irish citizenship. The Chinese parents used their daughter's Irish (and thereby European Union) citizenship to obtain permanent residence in the UK as parents of a dependent EU citizen. Ireland was the last country in Europe to abolish unrestricted jus soli."


This seems like a ploy by Labour to try to make themselves feel progressive and relevant. I'm sure SF will jump on the bandwagon also. But it will be difficult to overturn as the obvious question will be - why should we be different than the rest of Europe. What is Labour looking for? To get Ryanair to sell a birth package along with hotel rooms and car hire on their website?

How can Labour be considered a party with 6 seats?

They could all be in one house and still not violate Covid 19 rules!


How was your party at the weekend...ah yeah it was great, 5 of the lads came over to my gaff.

Yeah, I would not vote for this. It should be based off where your parent are from, not where you are born.

Unfortunately the amendment includes the phrasing "unless provided for by law.". Not that the rule of law is bad, but it means that it won't take another referendum to change the law back to birthright citizenship.

Given that in recent years we have crept more and more in the direction of "government by NGO", it wouldn't surprise me if legislation to restore birthright citizenship is passed, backed solely by a report from the migrant council. The public won't get a say in the matter.

Won’t happen, we’d be slapped down by Europe for opening the back door, and when we see the issues there are with the new Europeans being shipped in by the boatload, do we really want to bring this down on our heads?????

Just when you think they can't get any more unelectable - the Labour party delivers

Lads, think of all the lost opportunities we missed out on by removing the right to citizenship (which was only added to the constitution in the late 90's)

Imagine if we had never put it in? We would never have had the good fortune to be able to house, feed and "educate" such luminaries as the great Dr. E J herself who would be able to tell us that we needed to feel guilty that there are statues outside a hotel

How many other EJ's did we miss out on by bringing in this terrible rule? We could have had thousands and thousands more had we remained the outlier in Europe and just spread the word

Nabber wrote: »

Such hypocrisy with this. Populist in Ireland wag their finger at other countries for not accepting migrants. Particularly when it comes to USA Mexico border. We don't have such issues, but what we do is make sure that any child born here doesn't have automatic citizenship and can be deported back to a country that is not their birth place.

The rule almost always impacts African, Asian, S.America and Middle East.
We as a nation voted this in by 80%, then we should shut our mouth when other countries maintain/protect their citizenship and borders.

It was only added to the constitution in the late 90's and was an entirely unintended consequence of the Good Friday agreement. The purpose of the referendum was only to remove it as a constitutional right. That allows it to be controlled by legislation. Children of people who are in the country legally generally obtain citizenship.

It is not about "accepting migrants" as you say, because if the migrant is "accepted" then their child will get citizenship! It is a completely different point.


Other countries which have Jus soli generally do not have the associated benefits extending to the family the same as in Ireland/Europe. If you moved to the US for a year or two to work and had a child then that child is a US citizen. If your work and visa finishes then you have to leave the country. The child is always a citizen. It generally confers no real rights to you - despite the usage of the "anchor baby" term. When the child is 18 it could go back to the US and petition for you to join it. But there is no such thing as landing off a boat to the US, straight to hospital, have a baby and leave the hospital and be put into accommodation and welfare supports. There are wealthy Chinese women who do take advantage of the US system but it is just so their baby has the citizenship. They fly in, go to an expensive hospital, then return to China afterwards. What we had were wealthy (relative to their peers), generally African, woman who saw a loophole and were able to exploit it and then get on the pigs back for a relatively handy life in Europe.



You also need to remember that Irish citizenship is European citizenship. We cannot be the only outlier and leaving a back door open. It was crazy at the time. Maternity hospitals were literally being packed with woman who had only entered the country to give birth. Plenty were coming off the boat from the UK etc. just as they were about to pop!

I can just imagine the Labour think tanks sitting in and asking why they don't appeal to working class men anymore.

I know, we can ignore the referendum on anchor babies and reintroduce citizenship through birth. That will get tradespeople, factory workers, delivery drivers back on out side. Motion passed.

They are a parody of the UK Labour Party who absolutely dumped on their voter base and got murdered by it.

Unfortunately if this did go to referendum again, they will have the full arm of the media, NGO Industry and Big tech fighting for the cause. No political party would oppose it. I still don't think they'd win but it would be worrying.