I had the very pleasant experience today of conducting my first Citizenship Ceremony, in which we conferred British citizenship on seven people at the High Commission in Canberra.
They were all Australians who were acquiring citizenship through family links or through naturalisation after living in the UK for some time. It used to be the case that British citizenship could not be passed on through a British born mother to children born outside the UK before 1961, but that rule was changed in November 2010 and the Home Office fee removed, this is generating quite a few applications. In total we perform up to 350 citizenship ceremonies in our Australian network each year.
As dual nationals, the new British citizens will be able to travel, live and work in all the 27 countries of the European Union. They will be able to call on the FCO’s worldwide network of overseas posts for support if they run into difficulties on their travels, whether or not they have used their British passport to enter the country concerned, provided they are not also a citizen of that country.
The actual ceremony is quite a straight forward official procedure. The participants had not risked life and limb travelling perilous oceans to win their citizenship. But it was nonetheless an important and solemn occasion and that was apparent in the dignified way in which the new citizens proclaimed their oath or pledge of allegiance.