Son of former British high commissioner refused citizenship over birthplace

The infant son of former British High Commissioner Arthur Snell was denied British citizenship, according to a tweet from the former diplomat's Twitter account yesterday.

Snell, who served as TT's British High Commissioner from 2011 to 2015, said his son was denied British citizenship by authorities as he was born in Trinidad and not in England.

Snell said, despite being able to resolve the issue, he felt "powerless and nervous in spite of my privileged position."

"The process by which you demonstrate you may or may not have a right to be British is not at all straightforward, and – I suspect – part of that is designed to make it difficult for people.

In 2011 I was serving as British High Commissioner to Trinidad and Tobago. I was incredibly excited to have a son born in Trinidad. After a few weeks, I received notification that he had been refused. You cannot be more British than the British High Commissioner but he wasn’t British enough."

Newsday attempted to contact Snell, who has since returned to England, but was unsuccessful.