The South Australian senator has told the Sunday Mail this morning that the British Home Office has confirmed his citizenship.
Senator Xenophon now joins a growing list of Australian politicians caught up in the citizenship debacle that means he may not be eligible to be a member of federal Parliament.
He described the category of citizenship that he is classed as was a “colonial relic” that needed to be addressed by the Australian Parliament.
Senator Xenophon will not resign from parliament but instead had sought advice from a constitutional lawyer.
“When the parliament resumes in a little over a fortnight, I will seek the support of the Senate to refer myself to the High Court sitting as the Court of Disputed Returns,” he said.
“Overnight and this morning I have sought legal advice from an authoritative constitutional law barrister, and it is appropriate that I keep working hard for South Australians in the Senate until the case is determined later this year.”
Senator Xenophon’s citizenship category is a historical category of citizenship formerly known as a Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies.
“The literature on this and oral advice from the UK Home Office is that this form of citizenship is quote “useless”, and indeed in many cases it confers fewer rights than an Australian Citizen travelling on an Australian passport to the United Kingdom would have.
Source: Xenophon confirmed as UK citizen
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