ABSTRACT

THE BRITISH Nationality Act (BNA) 1981 finally established ‘British citizenship’ in the statute book. In general, scholars of migration commented that the BNA 1981 represented a thorough ‘overhaul’,1

needed since the Second World War, of British immigration and citizenship policies. However, the way in which the BNA 1981 is interpreted differs greatly from scholar to scholar. The majority of the previous works on the BNA 1981 have criticized it as the logical result of the racist policies followed since the Second World War.2 However, a recently published book has challenged those criticisms as unjust and even absurd, and instead has credited the act with being a ‘massive effort at rationalization and clarification’ of British citizenship on the basis of the territorial unit of the United Kindom.3