Update treason law

The thought of Shamima Begum returning to Britain will fill many readers with disgust. By any sensible definition, the jihadi bride betrayed her country by travelling to Syria to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), and we were assured last year that she would never be coming back. The vast majority of the public will have supported wholeheartedly the then home secretary Sajid Javid’s decision to deprive Begum of her British citizenship.

Doing so, however, was always going to be difficult; Begum could just about be reclassified as Bangladeshi through her mother, but even so, the Court of Appeal ruled yesterday that she has a right to come back to the UK to challenge the decision. The Government is expected to appeal, but it is not at all clear that it will be successful.

Arguably, this is a problem created in Britain that should never have been dumped onto a third country. Begum was radicalised here: the UK failed to stop it, failed to prevent her travelling to Syria and does not know what to do with her. We are hamstrung by our own legal regime, by the fear that it is hard to prosecute someone in such circumstances. Begum could end up not only walking free but – almost inevitably – living off the taxpayer. That is not a result that anyone wants.

Citizenship is also meant to be permanent, and there is a reasonable concern that making it negotiable in this way could be exploited by future governments to punish critics. It would be much more equitable and effective to update the treason laws so that those who join enemy groups or run away to enemy countries can be properly punished in our own prisons. Such a serious problem demands a serious legislative answer – and urgently.