England coach granted citizenship

[Chess]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4240294.stm

some people are more equal than others

[Vayu]

what I don't get is that if both his parents were British by birth, why couldn't he get BC automatically?

[Smit]

Good question. In such a case, I would have thought that he was a British Citizen irrespective of the time he spent in or out of the UK. Maybe the case was not as clear cut as reported in the Media.

[John]

Maybe because someone who is British but born outside the UK (and not naturalised or registered as British) is not permitted to pass on British Citizenship to their children born outside the UK.

So it could be, for example, even if all four grandparents were born in Britain, if both of the coach's parents were born in say Zimbabwe then any of their "not born in the UK" children would not inherit British Citizenship. The BBC news story specifically refers to :-

The Zimbabwe-born coach ......

[Vayu]

Well the article does say:

Mr Fletcher qualified as British as both his parents and all four grandparents were born in the UK.

So the mystery deepens!!

[bbdivo]

I think it has partly got something to do with Zimbabwe declaring Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) at that point all BC lost their rights completely during this time (or something like that), therefore the only thing he would have been able to claim is Right of Abode through ancestry.

I could be completely off the plot!

[Joseph]

Yes, it appears that he lost his citizenship rights when Zimbabwe declared independence. In any case, it's right that he should be granted citizenship, especially because the reason he is outside the UK is to represent England in cricket. It's not unlike Crown Service.

Joseph

[Smit]

I would be amazed that John Smith's UDI stripped people of another country's citizenship. Wouldn't that go against the principle of sovereignty of states?

[krazyhorse]