‘A second-class citizen in fact’:  The racist roots and ongoing harms of the UK’s ‘good character’ requirement to naturalise as a British citizen

On 21 July 2025, Rights & Security International releases ‘A second-class citizen in fact’: The racist roots and ongoing harms of the UK’s ‘good character’ requirement to naturalise as a British citizen, a research report into the UK’s ‘good character’ requirement for becoming a British citizen. Parliament has imposed the ‘good character’ requirement through varying, but always vague, laws since 1915, and those laws continue to impact thousands of people today, including children from the age of 10 and members of the Windrush generation.  

In the report, we conclude that the UK adopted and then maintained the ‘good character’ requirement precisely because it allows for subjective and potentially discriminatory decision-making – and not in spite of those risks. ‘Good character’ is not defined in UK nationality law, and although Home Office caseworkers have detailed guidance for assessing applications, the Home Secretary has total discretion to grant or refuse citizenship to people on this basis. We found evidence that the Home Office is applying the requirement in a way that disproportionately impacts not only people from the Windrush generation – many of whom are Black or Asian – but also Muslims and people from Muslim-majority countries. 

Between 2002 – 2021, the Home Office refused more than 47,000 citizenship applications from both adults and children on ‘good character’ grounds. Since then, it has been failing to publish statistics, and it has never published data about the racial or religious impact of the ‘good character’ requirement. 

People do not need to have been convicted of – or even charged with – any criminal offence to be denied UK citizenship on ‘good character’ grounds. The government only needs to say it suspects them of wrongdoing, or that the person is associated with someone who may have done something wrong. Denials of citizenship on ‘good character’ grounds cannot be appealed and are very difficult to challenge. 

Our report describes the history and racist origins of the ‘good character’ requirement as well as its impact today, and provides a human rights analysis. We conclude that the way the UK applies the requirement, particularly to refugees and asylum-seekers, may violate international law. 

We also provide a brief comparative analysis of naturalisation policies from France and Canada, and consider how the UK might adopt similar policies to reduce possible discrimination or subjective decision-making by introducing clearer criteria for naturalising (or, for children, ‘registering’) as British citizens. 

We conclude the report with detailed recommendations on more objective and non-discriminatory approaches to assessing applications for citizenship, and call on the UK government to create an effective appeals system for people to challenge citizenship refusals – including potentially racist or Islamophobic ones – before the courts.