IX
It is conceivable that some dependencies would prefer not to adopt a citizenship law. Parliament at Westminster cannot and should not force the dependency to do so. It can cater for this possibility without upsetting the proposed new scheme, by conferring nationality of the United Kingdom on anyone who has with an existing dependency associations which, in the case of the United Kingdon, result in the individual's automatic acquisition of citizenship. Thus, if Belize should fail to adopt a citizenship law, a nativa of Bəliɛe would become a national of the United Kingdom as fully as if that territory had done so. His children born abroad would take that nationality (this would constitute the sole exception to the rule that nationality of the United Kingdom is not transmissible); but he would probably lose in that his position would be the same as that of a person known at present as a British subject without citizenship.
FETAL NATIONALITY
To must people dual or plural nationality is an enviable status. It acknowledges a person's associations with more than one country, and enables him or her to .ecure the advantages of all those associations. On the other hand, it divides the dual national's alejme, it may enable him to derive the advantages of one of his cowbries while avoiding the concomitant obligations; and it een create difficulties if a legal question arises about his or her miriage or property since in many countries and jurisdictions such questions are determined according to the law of a person's nationality. For these and other reasons, most countries discourage plural nationality and citizenship much more forcefully than does the United Kingdom. The time has come for the United Kingdom to confona more closely with the policy of those countries.
A child who obtained citizenship of the United Kingdon at birth or by adoption would lose that status six months after attaining his majority if he then had any other citizenship. Thus, if a child of a citizen of the United Kingdom were bom in the United States of America, he would remain a dual citizen until reaching the end of six months from his eighteenth birthday. By that time he would be expected to settle his allegiance by renouncing one citizenship or the other. Unless he renounced his citizenship of the United States, he would cease to be a citizen of the United Kingdom.
Nationality of the United Kingdom derived only from association with a former dependency would be incompatible with the nationality or citizenship of any other country. Thus, a person now designated as a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies by association with Kenya would fail to become a national of the United Kingdom (or would cease to be one) if he was, or became, a citizen of Kenya. He would be obliged to choose the one citizenship or the other. Likewise a person now designated as a British subject without citizenship, because of his connections with British India, would fail to become a national of the United Kingdom (or cease to be one) if he had or took Indian nationality. On the other hand, an Irish citizen who registered as a British Subject under section 2 of the British Nationality Act 1948 (or his wife who registered under section 1 of the Act of 1965) could remain a national of the United Kingdom and or Ireland, since Ireland was never a dependency of the United