or registered. This status would also be conferred on those other people who now citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies or British Protected Persons but who would not become British Citizens. As a general rule entry to a depen- dency would be limited to those who were British Overseas Citizens by virtue of a connection with it. And British Overseas Citizenship would not carry with it the right of entry to the United Kingdom (paragraphs 67–70). It would be necessary, so that British Overseas Citizenship should in the longer term be related to dependencies only, to make the rules for acquisition and transmission more restrictive than those for British Citizenship (paragraphs 71–74).
The special question of United Kingdom Passport holders from East Africa
These arrangements would not affect the obligation which the Government have assumed towards holders of United Kingdom passports from East Africa, and the special voucher system would continue (paragraph 70).
This document is published as part of the process of open Government. Members of the public or representatives of interested bodies who wish to express their views on any of the matters discussed in the document are invited to write to the Home Office, Nationality Division (A.H. Room 1606), Immigra- tion and Nationality Department, 40 Wellesley Road, Croydon CR9 2BY.
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BRITISH NATIONALITY LAW
DISCUSSION OF POSSIBLE CHANGES
INTRODUCTION
1. The Government have been reviewing the working of the British Nationality Acts. The chief of these was passed as long ago as 1948, and much has happened since then to suggest that a new nationality law is needed. A discussion paper cannot cover every problem which arises on this complicated subject; but the Government hope that the paper will serve to indicate the major issues for discussion and eventual decision.
2. The paper does not seek to discuss such matters as the subtle differences between nationality and citizenship but concentrates on practical issues. At present we have a citizenship which does not define those who have a close connection with the United Kingdom; in this respect we are at a disadvantage compared with most other countries.
THE CURRENT NATIONALITY LAW
The British Nationality Act 1948
3. Our present system of citizenship is unsatisfactory in several ways. To understand it fully, it is necessary to describe how the 1948 Act came to be. Before 1 January 1949 when the 1948 Act came into force, everyone who owed perpetual allegiance to the British Monarch (for example, by birth in the United Kingdom, a Dominion or a Colony) was a British subject. There were also large numbers of people to whom British protection had been granted (British Protected Persons). But the need to identify the people of each self-governing Dominion by means of a distinct national status more narrowly defined than British nationality was increasingly felt in those countries. Eventually, in 1946, Canada created its own citizenship, although still within the framework of British subject status. After a conference held in London in 1947, the other independent countries of the Commonwealth followed suit, as have other countries on achieving their independence within the Commonwealth. Under the new arrangements, each country was to determine who were its citizens, to declare those citizens to be British subjects, and to recognise as British subjects the citizens of other Commonwealth countries. However, each country was left free to decide what this recognition should entail, so that the content of British subject status has come to vary widely within the Commonwealth.
4. The Act of 1948 introduced these principles into United Kingdom law. It created a citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies, with the continuing status of British subject, and laid down rules for its acquisition. It was relatively simple to provide how this status should be acquired in future, but it was more difficult to decide which of the British subjects then alive should become citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies. The Act gave that citizenship not only to British subjects then alive who had ties with the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, or with a Colony, but also gave it to some British subjects who did not, for one reason or another, acquire the citizenship of another Commonwealth country. But most of the Commonwealth countries which were then independent had yet to pass their citizenship laws, and the 1948 Act
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