Changes since the 1948 Act
7.
The scheme set up under the Act has met with various difficulties. First, the status of British subject without citizenship, which was intended to be transitional, has
persisted. This is because India and Pakistan enacted citizenship laws in 1950 and 1951 which withheld citizenship
from many people who had derived their status of British subject
from their connection with those territories and who were
regarded by the British Government, at the time of the passing of the 1948 Act, as potential citizens of those countries. The United Kingdom did not feel able to grant citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies to all these people from India and Pakistan who had failed to acquire such citizenships. They often had no connection with the United Kingdom or a Colony
then existing. The status of British subject without citizenship has therefore remained in existence longer than originally expected, but as people have obtained other citizenships they have ceased to hold it, and since it relates to people born before 1949, the numbers are diminishing.
8. Other problems developed as more countries of the Commonwealth became independent. Some of these countries did not, at independence, confer their citizenship on all the citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies who had ties with them. Kenya, for instance, did not give its citizenship automatically to citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies born in Kenya before independence, unless one parent had been born there.
There
were similar problems with British Protected Persons linked
with some territories. So significant numbers of people, for instance
in East Africa and Malaysia, did not acquire local citizenship
on independence and remained citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies or British Protected Persons even though they had
no close connections either with the United Kingdom or with one of the remaining Colonies.
Often they hold no other citizenship.