Should British-born children of immigrants have different rights or obligations toward Britain than citizens whose families have lived here for generations — particularly in their freedom to criticise the country?
Citizenship is supposed to be indivisible. In law, a child born in Britain to immigrant parents is as British as one whose ancestors fought at Agincourt. Yet in public life, equality often ends where ancestry begins. When minorities criticise Britain, they are told to be grateful; when long-settled Britons do so, they are praised as patriots.
This double standard mistakes inheritance for ownership. Under the British Nationality Act 1981, rights are equal by birth or naturalisation. To assign moral gradations of belonging by lineage would reintroduce hereditary privilege in civic form. John Rawls’s Theory of Justice reminds us that behind a “veil of ignorance” no rational citizen would accept fewer rights because of their parents’ birthplace.
The common argument — that descendants of immigrants owe special gratitude to Britain — collapses under scrutiny. Gratitude is a virtue, not a contract; coerced gratitude is servility. Post-war immigrants were not passive beneficiaries but active builders of the nation: they staffed hospitals, drove buses, paid taxes, and raised the children who now sustain the economy. Their offspring’s citizenship was earned twice — by birth and by contribution.
Criticism, moreover, is not ingratitude but engagement. Michael Walzer’s idea of the “connected critic” captures this: the loyal citizen improves the community by confronting its failings. Those who straddle two worlds often see Britain’s contradictions most clearly — inequality, racial bias, and unfulfilled promises of fairness. Their dissent strengthens democracy’s immune system; silencing it weakens the body politic.
Yet social perception lags behind principle. A white Briton lamenting “broken Britain” is a reformer; a brown Briton saying the same is a malcontent. This reveals an anxiety about ownership: that Britain belongs more to some than to others. In truth, every generation redefines the nation’s character. The children of immigrants extend Britishness rather than dilute it.
Freedom of speech carries duties of accuracy and civility, but those obligations bind all citizens equally. Isaiah Berlin’s notion of positive liberty — self-mastery through participation — means that genuine belonging requires the freedom to question. Silence is not loyalty; it is fear.
To claim that some Britons must speak softly while others may shout loudly is to mistake democracy for inheritance. The child of immigrants owes Britain what every citizen does: honesty, engagement, and the courage to help it live up to its ideals.
In a confident nation, dissent is not betrayal but proof of confidence itself. The measure of Britain’s maturity will be whether it stops asking its newest citizens to prove their love, and starts listening when they express it critically.
