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[Mr. Julian Amery]
FROM
DEBATE
NATIONALITY BILL
British Nationality Bill
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that at present there is no wish to change the relevan regulations. The Gibraltarians do not want that as privilege. They want it as a right. They deserve it as right. What is the argument against? The European Community gave Gibraltarians the right of abode after the Second World War and they staunchly voted for the British connection.
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I know the arguments that my right hon. Friend will deploy. He will say that it might open the floodgates to countless others. The example of Hong Kong will be thrown in our faces. I have a great regard for Hong Kong and its people. However, Hong Kong is different from Gibraltar. Hong Kong is not a member of the European Community. It is not a fortress which can never become independent. Indeed, we have to talk with the People's Republic of China about the future of Hong Kong, and we do so. The case of Hong Kong is the alibi which my right hon. Friend will probably wave in frott of the House.
Anyone who has his ear to the ground in Whitehall knows that that is not the reality. The reality is the desire to appease the Spanish Government. I have always been a friend of Spain, under whatever regime. I love the Spanish people. Few of us would disagree that Spain is not a stable country. It had a dictatorship, which was stable but unfriendly. There is now a democratic experiment. We hope that it will succeed and survive. Things have happened in the Spaich Podiumont efch fory
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hen, berid the Home Secretary that few Gibral
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Mr. Russell Johnson (inverness): M Members wish to speak, so I shall not detain the long. I wish to pay tribute to the hon. Mi Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. McQuarrie), who h most steadfast friend to Gibraltar ever since he House and for a long time before. We must pay his work for Gibraltar.
It is a great pleasure for me to find myself; the right hon. Member for Brighton, Pavil Amery)—as I have done many times before and with his remarks--and realise that I have no disa with anything that he said. As a minority party I want to make one thing quite clear. W party even if it
if it were my
my own-introdu legislation, I should vote against it. As the hon. G so clearly expressed, it is quite wrong that House, with our long debt to and relations Gibraltar, should even contemplate what we doing. That must be wrong.
If a Labour Home Secretary had introd legislation, what would the Home Secretary b about it? I have no doubt that if a Labour Home introduced the same propositions, the rig Gentleman would oppose them passionately, strę fervently. I appeal to the sense of justice that I has deeply held and ask him to reconsider his p
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