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b) Statutory collective citizenship title. I accept the necessity to have a single statutory collective title for use in the Act for belongers of all dependencies.
Our further consultations with the Governors following the draft paper which David Hilary sent to Donald Murray on 13 December have narrowed the preferred options, as we see them, to the following:-
c)
i) British Subject: Citizen_of Gibraltar or British Subject: Gibraltar7 Citizen. This would really be creating separate citizenships for each dependency, albeit all in one Act and with the same provisions applying to each dependency. It could cause political problems (eg with Argentina, Spain, and China) and I think we should discard this option.
ii)
British Subject: Citizen of the UK Colonies. This, of course, is prompted by the desire for minimum change and is still one of Hong Kong's preferred options. But it uses the word "Colonies" which many of the other dependencies dislike and which will cause problems with Spain and China. I would not, therefore, press this either.
iii) British Subject: British Dependent Territories Citizen or British Subject: Citizen of the British Dependent Territories. This is in effect your preference, but substituting 'Dependent Territories' for 'Colonies' and is our strong preference for the statutory collective title.
Administrative variants for use in passports, etc. The major dependencies have expressed a strong wish to have the name of the dependency included in the title. We do not want to do this in a way that brings about separate citizenships. We have, therefore, suggested having an administrative variant of the statutory collective title which could be used in passports, etc. I see no major obstacle to this: I do not think that we are restricted, as your paper suggested, to the strict statutory collective title with the name of the territory on a line below it. Let us discuss variants when we meet.
4. The citizenship provisions apart, there are two other points about the White Paper which I think you will agree must be adequately covered. First, it is essential to include in it, and in any Ministerial presentation of it, assurances to the dependencies that the proposals do not mean any change in their relationship with the UK nor in the UK's support for the dependencies. Secondly, Governors will need to brief their Councils before the White Paper appears. We must therefore let Governors have advance copies and guidance. In the case of Hong
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