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Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 25 November 2025

Debate

Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Contribution

My Lords, nationality has two distinct meanings: it is what it says on our passports, but it is also what we feel. The second of those, the sense of identity and belonging, of being a link in a chain between past and future generations, can be unconnected to territory. Perhaps the supreme example of nationality that exists in the heart is the State of Israel. History affords few stories like it: a people who for 2,000 years were stateless and scattered but never lost the aspiration of statehood—“Next year in Jerusalem”. Then, one day, quite extraordinarily and almost providentially, they fulfilled it. The British Government recognised a claim of nationality based on cultural, ethnic and religious homogeneity, even though it had been unrelated to territory since time immemorial.

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