Shamima Begum: What citizenship rights do children of British parents have when born outside UK?

Shamima Begum, the London schoolgirl who ran away to join Isis in Syria, has dominated the headlines in recent days after she pleaded to be allowed to return home to Britain.

Ms Begum, who fled Bethnal Green when she was 15 years old in 2015, has now given birth to a baby boy in a refugee camp in Syria, and wants to bring him back to the UK.

Her plea has provoked a debate over her rights as a British citizen. Home secretary Sajid Javid has he would not hesitate to block her return.

But justice secretary David Gauke has argued that Britain cannot make its citizens “stateless”.

What makes you a British citizen?

There are two types of British citizens – those who are a British citizen “by descent” and those who are a British citizen “otherwise than by descent” – and they have different rights.

If you were born in the UK to at least one British parent, you are British otherwise than by descent.

For children born outside the UK, who have at least one parent who was a British citizen at the time of the birth, they are usually British by descent.

Is British citizenship passed onto children born outside the UK?

A parent who is a British citizen otherwise than by descent at the time of birth can pass their British citizenship onto their children regardless of where the child is born.

But if neither parent is a British citizen otherwise than by descent, the child born outside the UK does not automatically become British.

A parent who is a British citizen by descent cannot normally pass their citizenship to children born outside of the UK. But they may be able to register their child as a British national.

That means Ms Begum's baby is entitled to British citizenship, and the rights it confers.