Quora Answer: Was the Home Office Right to Strip the Jihadi Jack of His British Citizenship?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Was the Home Office right to strip the ISIS fighter known as the Jihadi Jack of his British citizenship?”

The case of Jack Abraham Letts losing his citizenship is as much a trial by media, and the failure of the British to perform their consular duties, as it is the idiocy of Jack and his ridiculous ignorance of Islam, Middle East politics, and a foreign culture.

Firstly, we know he is a convert to Islam, who understands some Arabic, but has demonstrated no knowledge of the religion, no knowledge of the politics of Syria and Iraq, and had no business going there in the middle of a civil war.

Secondly, whilst there is anecdotal evidence that he may have had some sympathies for ISIS, we have no evidence that he was ever part of the group, that he was ever engaged in combat, or any other activity that would be construed as terrorism.

It was the British media that dubbed him “Jihadi Jack”, and that coloured the entire conversation.  The Conservative government did not want the legal complication of bringing Jack back to the UK to stand trial, and establish the facts, so they played to the gallery, the anti-Muslim hysteria of their base, and took a unilateral course of action by revoking his citizenship.

This sort of precedent is dangerous for a democracy since it means a government has carte blanche to strip the citizenship of people who have plausible or established citizenship with another nation, without actual legal recourse.  Today, it is used against real or supposed ISIS supporters.  Tomorrow, it could be used against political undesirables of the ruling party.