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241
[LORD BETHELL.]
British Nationality
[ LORDS]
legal rights, any treaty right to the Rock. Britain has remained in control of Gibraltar ever since and the people who came to live in that area are British today. They wish to remain British and they wish this amendment to be passed.
Many of your Lordships will have received letters from Gibraltar ministers, from the Chief Minister, from the leaders of the political parties and from ordinary citizens of the colony. I believe it is safe to say that the representations made from Gibraltar have been more intense and are more unanimously felt than the feelings on this subject from other dependent territories. We have all received representations about this Bill over this territory and that territory and my noble friend the Minister will contradict me if I am wrong, but my clear impression is that it is Gibraltar where the feelings expressed and the representations made to his department have been the strongest and based in the broadest spectrum of political life.
This feeling was given clear arithmetical voice in 1967 when, during a referendum, 12,138 people in Gibraltar voted to retain their link with the United Kingdom and 44 voted to establish a link with Spain. Anyone who has visited the Rock will know the gut emotional feeling of Britishness which almost all the people there feel. In some ways one can be forgiven for feeling, when one goes to Gibraltar, that they feel themselves more British than some of us do. Their Britishness is proclaimed by the flags they fly, by the look of the institutions, the policemen, the shops, the language that they speak--either as their main language or their second language--and even the political slogans that they write on parts of the city.
There is a very real debt of mutual gratitude linking this country and Gibraltar. Several times during her history Gibraltar has been under seige and Britain has defended the Rock. Then in the early 1940s this island was under seige and it was during that period that the people of Gibraltar selflessly offered their territory for the use of the British armed forces and most of the people of Gibraltar had to be evacuated from their homes to this country, perhaps not even expecting that they would ever see their homes again. The view has been expressed in another place that had it not been for Gibraltar it would not have been possible for Britain to have launched the landings in North Africa that turned the course of the Second World War and that indeed without Gibraltar we might not have won the Second World War. So we have helped one another under siege, in bad times as well as good, and this feeling, emotional though it be, is none the less valid and is something which should be taken into account by your Lordships when you come to decide upon this matter later this afternoon.
In 1973, Gibraltar, being the only European British territory outside the common travel area, joined the EEC under Article 227, paragraph 4, of the Treaty of Rome. But it was then that we in this country came up against a certain embarrassment, because at the moment British nationality law is a very complex matter and of course that is the reason for the Bill which we are at present debating. I personally voted for the Bill on its Second Reading and will vote for it in its remaining stages, but the complexities have had a special effect on Gibraltarians. Those com-
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242
plexities made it necessary for the United Kingdom Government to sign a special declaration which is annexed to the Treaty of Rome, defining what a United Kingdom national is. In the case of other member states, of course, this was not necessary because the nationality of the citizens of those member states, whether on the continent of Europe or outside it, is clear: a person from Martinique is a Frenchman; a person from Greenland is a Dane; a person from Heligoland, which has a separate customs régime, is a German. There is no division between the citizens of other member states as to where their nationality lies.
The main objection to the Bill as it stands vis-à-vis Gibraltar is that unless this amendment is passed the anomaly of dividing British members of the European Community will be perpetuated, and it is the purpose of this amendment to do away with this anomaly. Unless this amendment is accepted by the Government and passed, we shall have a situation in which 17,000 citizens of the European Community have one type of citizenship of their member state and the other 260 million citizens of the European Community have another type of citizenship, full citizenship, of their member state. So this, I believe, is an anomaly which we should correct, and which I hope we will correct later on today.
I want to come very briefly to the matter of the sad events of yesterday and the announcement that their Majesties the King and Queen of Spain will not be coming to London next week. I want to mention it only in passing as I think it illustrates an important principle at which this amendment is aimed. I person- ally see this as a shame, a pity, to see a fine and cour- ageous King of a great and friendly country being so badly advised. But the effect of it on Gibraltar is, of course, more of the same; it is very threatening, and it seems to them, in their minds, very menacing. It seems to them that again there are some advisers to the Spanish Government and to the Spanish King who believe that the claims of Spain to Gibraltar can be pursued by the old methods used under the Franco régime.
This is deeply depressing to those of us who hoped that with the collapse of the Franco régime and the restoration of democracy in Spain other methods, political methods, gentlemanly methods would be employed to build up a rapprochement between Gibraltar and her large neighbour. Indeed, I believe this is the only way by which the solution can be found. Of course, this increases the concern felt by Gibraltarians, because they think to themselves,
66
What is our future? What is going to happen to us? On the other hand, menacing voices are coming from Spain; on the other hand, we have no guarantee that we will be allowed to retain our British identity and British citizenship, or even the right to enter the United Kingdom". They say to themselves that they have no guarantee, and this worries them very much.
I know that the Home Secretary in another place said, in reply to a similar amendment to ours:
G
"
"Speaking for the Government, we have made it clear that we do not foresee that Gibraltarians would normally normally"!—
face any difficulty in entering the United Kingdom as they wish".