CONFIDENTIAL
The purpose is that the recipients should be in a post on properly to consult or inform governments in advance of publication, and that they should pass copies of the document at their discretion to Ministers/Members of Executive Councils shortly before the publication date.
6. Apart from the desirability of utilising advance copies of a Green Paper for consultation with Governments, our posts would find it most useful to
be in possession of the document before publication in order to be ready to give guidance to the media and to give information and advice to communities of United Kingdom nationals on publication. They would need full briefing and suitable material in order to counter misrepresentation of the proposals and criticism of them. The Commonwealth press corps in London almost certainly contains some journalists who will only be too ready to send inflammatory or misleading stories to their newspapers or agencies back home. Only prompt action by Government Press Officers in this country and by our posts overseas will be capable of limiting the damage done to our relations. We have already had a foretaste of how easily HMG's intentions can be misrepresented over- seas in the speech of the Indian Foreign Minister in Parliament last May. (See Annex 1.).
HEADS OF COMMONWEALTH GOVERNMENTS MEETING IN JUNE
1977
at any
Kinne
7. Publication/before this meeting, whether in February or lay, would clearly lead to the proposals
wen if not on the formal agenda being discussed at the meeting. Should ministers decide to publish before the meeting, it is doubly important that Commonwealth consultation should be carried out fully beforehand, so that Prime
Kinisters and Presidents arrive in London with their
wet misapprehensions removed or allayed. To carry
out only perfunctory Commonwealth consultations would cause resentment and ensure that the proposals were the subject of controversy at the meeting. Before the introduction of the Nationality Act in 1949 a Commonwealth conference was called to discuss the changes. There have been major developments in
4
/the
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