Shamima Begum will never be allowed to return to UK after losing final court bid

Supreme Court refuses to hear appeal to challenge the removal of her British citizenship

Shamima Begum will never be allowed to return to the UK after the Supreme Court refused to hear her appeal against the removal of her British citizenship. 
On Wednesday, justices at the UK’s highest court said Ms Begum could not appeal again after she lost a Court of Appeal bid in February.
Last year, Ms Begum lost her appeal against the decision to revoke her citizenship on national security grounds at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC). She was living in a Syrian refugee camp, having travelled to the country as a 15-year-old in 2015.
In their decision on Wednesday, Lords Reed, Hodge and Lloyd-Jones denied Ms Begum’s bid to go to the Supreme Court, finding her proposed appeal grounds “do not raise an arguable point of law”.
The three justices said that there was no arguable challenge to the Court of Appeal’s decision, including on whether Ms Begum should have been able to make representations to the then-home secretary before she was stripped of her citizenship.
Dismissing her Court of Appeal challenge in February, Baroness Carr, the Lady Chief Justice, said: “It could be argued the decision in Ms Begum’s case was harsh.
“It could also be argued that Ms Begum is the author of her own misfortune, but it is not for this court to agree or disagree with either point of view.
“The only task of the court was to assess whether the deprivation decision was unlawful.
“Since it was not, Ms Begum’s appeal is dismissed.”
In March, Court of Appeal judges rejected Ms Begum’s initial bid to take her case to the Supreme Court.
Ms Begum, who was born and raised in Tower Hamlets, east London, travelled to Syria via Turkey and aligned herself with Isil.
She married an Islamic State fighter soon after arriving and had three children, none of whom survived.
As the Isil caliphate collapsed, Sajid Javid, the then home secretary, used his powers under the British Nationality Act 1981 to deprive Begum of her citizenship on the basis that it was “conducive to the public good” as she posed a threat to national security.
Although British-born, Ms Begum had Bangladeshi citizenship until she was at least 21 but the country has made clear it will not accept her.
She sought to return to the UK in 2019 to challenge the removal of her citizenship but this was rejected by the Supreme Court in 2021.
She was forced to lodge her appeal against the revocation of her citizenship from northern Syria without giving evidence in person.
Her appeal was rejected by the special immigration appeal commission (SIAC) in February 2023, a decision she appealed to the Court of Appeal, which gave its judgment in February 2024.