1,000 signatures reached
To: Home Secretary - Priti Patel
Fix the UK’s misleading citizenship test
Review the “Life in the UK Test” as a matter of urgency. Until the history chapter has been corrected and rewritten, it should be formally withdrawn from the test.
Why is this important?
Britain’s citizenship test is broken and misleading - it ignores the vital role that Black and Brown people played in ending British slavery and colonisation. This white-washing of British history helps to fuel and solidify institutional racism in Britain today.
Already more than 175 historians have signed an open letter calling on the government to remove the “misleading and false” representations of slavery and empire from the test.
Everyone who wants British citizenship, has to take the ‘Life in the UK’ test. The handbook that helps prepare people for the test states things like:
“...by the second part of the 20th century, there was, for the most part, an orderly transition from empire to Commonwealth, with countries being granted their independence”.
In fact Decolonisation was often a violent process and people in the colonies had to fight hard for their independence. The British Citizenship test promotes the view the British empire came to and because British officials decided it was the right thing to do. Similarly the abolition of Slavery is presented as a British achievement and doesn’t mentioned the role enslaved people played in abolishing slavery.
Already more than 175 historians have signed an open letter calling on the government to remove the “misleading and false” representations of slavery and empire from the test.
Everyone who wants British citizenship, has to take the ‘Life in the UK’ test. The handbook that helps prepare people for the test states things like:
“...by the second part of the 20th century, there was, for the most part, an orderly transition from empire to Commonwealth, with countries being granted their independence”.
In fact Decolonisation was often a violent process and people in the colonies had to fight hard for their independence. The British Citizenship test promotes the view the British empire came to and because British officials decided it was the right thing to do. Similarly the abolition of Slavery is presented as a British achievement and doesn’t mentioned the role enslaved people played in abolishing slavery.
