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Theresa May, the Home Secretary, is planning to significantly increase her department's use of legal powers that allow serious criminals with dual nationality to have their British citizenship withdrawn, Whitehall sources say. Until now, the powers have predominately been used to remove the UK passports of terrorists and terrorist sympathisers.
But senior department sources told The Independent that - in response to the series of Asian sex abuse gangs uncovered in towns across the country in recent years - there is likely to be an "acceleration of passport strike-outs and potential deportations".
British-Pakistani members of the gang of six men and women from Rotherham who were convicted on Wednesday of offences including rape, forced prostitution, indecent assault and false imprisonment are expected to face action to strip them of their UK citizenship after they are sentenced today. Legal proceedings seeking their potential deportation to Pakistan are likely to follow.
The abuse of predominantly white girls by networks of Asian men has led to prosecutions across the North of England and the Midlands. More trials are imminent.
David Greenwood, head of the child abuse department at Switalskis solicitors in Sheffield, who represents almost 60 victims subjected to sexual abuse by the Rotherham gang between 1996 and 2012, said: "This trial is just the first of many and is the tip of a very big iceberg. From the work I have done, it appears that gangs of Asian men have been operating to sexually abuse young white girls in Rotherham, Oxford, Keighley, Bradford and Rochdale."
Although amendments to British nationality laws in 2014 making it easier to strip dual nationals of citizenship were primarily aimed at terrorists who could undermine the UK's security, the Home Office is now using the same legal sanctions to target serious crime, including sex abuse.
How about stripping the sex abuse politicians of their citizenship and exiling them? After they serve multi-decade hard labor prison terms.