In a major speech the Prime Minister reflected on the role of multiculturalism in a modern and evolving society.
In preparation for his lecture, the fifth in the Our Nation’s Future series, Tony Blair considered the following paper - one of those written by a range of experts in the field.
The authors are independent, and all views and opinions are their own. They do not necessarily agree with Government policy, but each makes an interesting contribution to the debate.
About the expert
David Goodheart is Editor of Prospect Magazine.
Read the paper
Earned Citizenship
For reasons of history and national temperament the British (especially the English) have worn their national citizenship rather lightly. Consequently we have tended to ask little of new citizens when they come to live in this country. That is more the result of absent-mindedness than generosity to outsiders, because at the same time most established citizens also resent it when new citizens appear to have a purely instrumental motive (usually economic) for coming to settle permanently in Britain.
Nobody expects new citizens to wander about waving the union jack, and few people object to continuing attachments to a country of origin, but most people do want new citizens to make an effort to join in, and to show that their primary commitment is to this country. But if we, the existing citizens, don’t seem to value our own citizenship we can scarcely expect newcomers to value it either.
Fortunately, this is beginning to change. At a time of great mobility, high immigration, European integration, the rise of identity politics, and so on, the old instinctive, usually ethnic, assumption of who we are is not sufficient anymore. We are starting to invent new markers of national citizenship, both for long-standing and for new citizens. I am focusing here on new citizens.
The concept of "earned citizenship" for newcomers is helpful in this context. British citizenship offers huge rewards in terms of political and economic rights and freedoms not to mention free schooling, healthcare and welfare support. Most long-standing citizens take these things for granted and/or see them as part of a kind of national "acquis communitaire" that they inherit as part of their Britishness. But they are very sensitive, especially poorer Britons, about those who appear to "free ride" on these rights and services, especially if they are new to the country and have not paid in to the system for any length of time. On the whole, free-riding is not a serious problem but it is a big "perception" problem — a MORI poll for Prospect in 2003 found that 47 per cent of people believe that other people get unfair priority over them when it comes to public services and state benefits.
New Labour is well aware of these issues, its rights and obligations approach and "something for something" citizenship is based, in part, on a sensitivity to the strength of the free-riding perception. In order to encourage people to be relatively open and generous towards fellow citizens they need to be reassured that others are not "taking advantage" of the welfare system. The idea of earned citizenship, plays the same sort of role for new citizens. By stressing the contribution — current or future — of the would-be citizen it seeks to reassure those who worry about free-riding. But this is not just about economics and welfare it is also about "rites of passage" and the symbolism of joining, about showing respect to an already existing society. Moreover, the idea of citizen rites of passage also has the useful effect of raising the visibility of British citizenship and underlining its value and "specialness" for all of us.
The idea of earned citizenship can be looked at in two different dimensions: the political-symbolic and the economic-welfare dimensions. Let me look first at the political-symbolic. Until quite recently acquiring British citizenship was a discrete and private affair. If you fulfilled the various requirements you made an application and eventually got a letter through the post telling you of your new status. New Labour rightly decided that this was inadequate and introduced three new elements to becoming a citizen. First, the voluntary (but popular) citizenship ceremonies, usually at the local town hall, where there is a short cerermony in which the new citizen is sworn-in accompanied by friends and relatives. Second, the requirement to pass a citizenship test, a relatively simple test about British history and contemporary British society which can be retaken if the applicant fails. Third, the requirement to pass a language proficiency test in English which is often wrapped into the citizenship test, this too can be taken many times.
None of these things by themselves are very onerous or significant, but by raising slightly the hurdles to becoming British we send out an important signal both to new citizens and to existing citizens — we value our citizenship very highly and we expect you to do the same. The language test is also an official repudiation of the most extreme form of multi-culturalism which holds that so long as someone pays their taxes and obeys the law, British society can make no further demands on them — it is perfectly acceptable, in other words, to live in a "little Pakistan" or "little Somalia" without communicating with citizens from the majority population at all. This sort of behaviour on any significant scale is clearly a death wish on a cohesive society.
There is another long-established aspect of "earning" citizenship that is rarely noticed — that is the probationary period of five years (or three years for a spouse) before an incomer can become a citizen. The most significant aspect of the probationary period is that people must be of "good character" during this period, meaning presumably that they must not commit a crime above a certain level of seriousness. Although citizenship is rarely refused (once the relevant tests have been passed) more attention should be drawn to this good behaviour probationary period, and perhaps it should be stated more explicitly that citizenship will be automatically refused (and perhaps residence rights withdrawn too) if a crime carrying a potential custodial sentence of one year or more is committed by the applicant during the five year period. This probationary period should be made more visible and more meaningful.
Let me now address the economic-welfare dimension of earned citizenship. Britain has a very open welfare state. It is pretty simple for anyone with an address in Britain to access free education and health care. And unlike much of continental Europe we have an overwhelmingly "common pool" welfare system, almost all of it paid for out of general taxation. That may make British citizens somewhat more susceptible to free-rider anxieties because their own entitlement feels less "ring-fenced" than in an insurance-based system. This is a problem, especially at a time of high immigration. As John Denham wrote recently in Prospect: "Nothing is more damaging to social cohesion than the belief that expensive tax-funded services are too readily available to people who are not entitled to them. Illegal immigration is the central concern here, and is often exaggerated, but resentment runs deep against any type of fraud or unfair access to a service. The legal basis for access to the NHS and education is not clear enough for a modern mobile world; this is unsustainable given our record investments in these services. Citizens must be sure that access to public services is not a free-for-all but is based on a protected and privileged entitlement. Identity cards, supported by legislation to clarify entitlement to services and backed by a beefed-up workplace inspectorate to take action against employers of illegal labour, will demonstrate a commitment to using taxpayers’ money fairly. This could also provide a clear framework for phased entitlement for migrants to different benefits and services."
By connecting your entitlement to your citizenship status, identity cards would go some way to ensuring that what Denham calls the "fairness code" of ordinary British citizens is not breached. (Identity cards could also function as modern badges of Britishness which transcend our more particular regional, ethnic or racial identities — indeed they should be re-named citizenship cards.)
But ID cards in this context are a protection against the abuses of "unearned" citizenship. In what sense can membership of the welfare state be earned by those whose ancestors did not fight in the world wars that helped to create it and have not paid into it over many years? The answer is that it can be earned in a relatively straightforward way by coming to work in Britain and paying your taxes. There are, in addition, a host of complicated rules on phased access to welfare and public services for different categories of people. But the two most important restrictions — for both EU citizens and non-EU citizens — is that out of work benefits are only available after one year’s residence and, similarly, elective care on the NHS is only free after one year. (People who come on certain kinds of work visas may have an indefinite block on out of work benefits.) The restrictions may seem relatively minor but, importantly, they mean that you cannot come to Britain to be unemployed. You must have a job to come to or bring money to invest.
Should there be tougher restrictions on access to health and education for a limited period? Clearly, turning sick people away from treatment is not something we want to do — and under current rules everyone is entitled to use Accident and Emergency services as soon as they enter the country and can be treated for contagious diseases too. Similarly we work on the assumption that all children living in the country are entitled to a free education. But one of the most powerful reasons for resentment against non-genuine asylum seekers in the late 1990s and early 2000s was that in some parts of the country people experienced non-English speaking children suddenly dumped into their already struggling school, or saw asylum seekers putting extra pressure on local medical services. As well as the restrictions noted above on out of work benefits and elective care on the NHS, perhaps newcomers ought to be asked to pay a token amount for services they use before they have fully "paid in." Indeed there may be a case for dividing the whole system of access between "full citizens" and "temporary citizens" (people who have been resident for less than five years), with the latter having more restricted rights to bring in family members and with some limits on the use of welfare and public services. A clearer distinction of that sort would help to underline the special value of citizenship and why it is worth striving for, while also acknowledging that some people do not want to fully "buy into" Britain and only want a time-restricted, and more purely instrumental, job-related, relationship to the country. ID cards ought to make policing such a distinction in citizenship relatively simple.
Earned citizenship is about new citizens. And we should not feel squeamish about making special demands on new citizens. They are joining an already existing society, not a random collection of individuals. That society has norms and affinities that take time to become part of. It takes time and patience for the the "them" to become part of the "us." Somewhat higher hurdles to citizenship are a way of acknowledging that the offer of equal citizenship — both formal and also "felt" equality — is not always easy to make or to receive and needs symbolic and institutional assistance.
However, too much stress on "earned citizenship" for newcomers can seem unreasonable — critics like to make fun of how few existing citizens could pass the citizenship tests and how generally insouciant many long-standing citizens are about their citizenship. And that is part of the point, the stress on earned citizenship, as I said at the start, should be seen in the context of a wider attempt to renew the idea of national citizenship — and at a time when the idea of Britishness itself seems to be fading (but that is another story). To say, as David Cameron does, that "we don’t do flags on the lawn" is no longer enough, at least not for those of us on the centre-left who want people to continue paying more than a third of their income to the state, who value redistribution and a generous welfare state, and who believe that the good society includes a sense of belonging and collective endeavour.
So, in the context of earned citizenship we should also be thinking about symbols and rites of passage that apply to ALL citizens. The introduction of citizenship classes in schools is one small step in this direction, although the experience so far has been rather mixed. Here are a few other ideas: a civil ceremony at the registering of every child’s birth (in addition to any religious ceremonies) where a representative of the state makes clear (probably through handing over a pamphlet rather than making a long speech) what those parents can expect from the state in terms of childcare, education, child benefits etc, and in return what the state expects from parents in their bringing up of their children; some sort of rite of passage at 18; compulsory (non-military) national service for six months for everyone between 16 and 21; compulsory voting, and/or making national election day a national holiday. Of course, these ideas would be attacked as "nanny-state" — but the creation and sustaining of national solidarity in our increasingly affluent, individualistic and diverse society does sometimes require pushing people towards courses of action they would not spontaneously choose. (The same applies to minority integration measures, when most people given a free choice would on balance prefer to live in neighbourhoods or send their children to schools dominated by people roughly like themselves.)
A final point. This paper has been arguing that making it slightly harder to become a citizen is good both for new citizens and established ones. But there is a danger that if we make it too onerous, fewer people will apply. Especially as the real prize for most people wanting to live in Britain (especially from outside the EU) is not citizenship but permanent right of residence. Currently the only difference between being a denizen (a permanent resident who does not have citizenship) and a citizen is that the latter can vote in national elections, must be available to serve on a jury and can travel on a British passport. Following the recent rise in immigration the number of denizens is likely to rise well over 1m. The problem here is that there are insufficient incentives to become a citizen — because too many of the rights and benefits of British life are based on residence not citizenship. We should consider making it a presumption of public policy that people who have lived here for a certain number of years will make the effort to become a citizen, unless there is a good reason not to. If you want to come and live here indefinitely is it not just good manners to symbolically join us by becoming a British citizen?
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