CONFIDENTIAL
DSR 11C
Foo shoved explain why
not
ں ہم
It would be ветрив Ч could say why
i Itk's case this is undesciatell
FC Fco shovel ook
To comment Peking
This is not a relevant argument
ни So low as th is concerned
that "British subject" could be withheld from them if the
other two categories had it); and it would mean, despite the
aim at simplification, that we should then have three statuses:
Commonwealth citizenship, British subject, and British or UK
The abandonment of the
Citizenship
Citizen (or dependency citizenship).
term as a common status had been agreed by Ministers and has
at least
been tacitly endorsed by the appropriate Cabinet committee.
Nevertheless, we think that we can make a strong case for re-
opening this question and we are ready to do so.
6. With this in mind we have been examining your preferred
alternatives to CUKC. There appear to be the following options
a) British Subject: Citizen of Hong Kong (or Hong Kong
Citizen).
Comment. This was in the first preference after CUKC
in Cater's telno 95 of 15 January. We think that this
would in reality be creating separate citizenships for
each dependency albeit all in the one Act. Even if it could be argued that it dod not legally create a separate citizenship for Hong Kong it gives every appearance of doing so and HMA in Peking does not like it for this
reason. We should therefore prefer not to pursue this
line. [There may be many other arguments against separate
citizenships for each dependency being created in this
way; for example, it is almost certainly impossible for
the Falkland Islands. It seems doubtful whether EXCO
did realise that this title would mean in effect a
separate citizenship for Hong Kong.]
b)
[British Subject]: Citizen of the British Dependent Territories.
Comment. As we tried to explain in telno 1(Personal) to
Anguilla of 4 January, if we are to avoid creating
separate citizenships for each dependency there must be a
single collective title in the Act to describe the status
of the belongers of all dependencies. The only way in
which we could try to satisfy the desire of several Governors for the inclusion of the name of the dependency
/in
CONFIDENTIAL
Dd 0532000 400 M 5/78 HMSO Bracknell