CODE 18,77
CONFIDENTIAL
Reference........
108
HHK 340 ||
Mr Campbell, NTD (CL 531)
FALKLANDS: NATIONALITY
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1. Your minute of 12 August asked for comments on your draft paper on the implications of the British Nationality Act for our consideration of the Falklands dispute. Although you will be showing the paper to the Home Office, my understanding is that it will be an internal document for use as a limited quarry for basic information and to enable your department to answer any questions similar to that put down by the FAC (but now in abeyance).
On that assumption, I have the following comments:
2.
Para 2 (ii): This is presumably framed to reflect your under- standing of what the FAC meant by their rather opaque question (No 9 in section B of the list). But I do not think there are any grounds for suggesting that there was any link between the consideration of Hong Kong's position and our discussions with the Islanders and the Argentines on sovereignty. Nor, on my reading of the FAC question, is it being suggested that the Act was expedited once the Hong Kong factor was settled, only that HMG wanted to have the Act passed before substantive negotiations on sovereignty. This is patent nonsense. I should prefer 2(ii) to be replaced by something more neutral, like:
'the significance for other dependent territories of the settlement of citizenship provisions for Hong Kong'.
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Para 3, last sentence: I think you can be more definite than this. I suggest you drop this sentence and say:
Although the dispute with Argentina over the Falklands was naturally a factor which had to be borne in mind, there is no question that it had any direct influence on either the timing or the content of the Act.'
Para 5, last sentence: I suggest that this is omitted.
Para 6, second and third sentences: These should be dropped. Instead you might say:
'Falkland Islanders have long demanded the right of abode in the UK for all, principally because of their close links with the UK but partly also because of the sovereignty dispute. In January 1981 the Islands' Legislative Council passed a motion calling on HMG to grant full British citizenship to all Islanders. Although they did not make HMG's accession to these requests a pre-condition for agreeing to talks with the Argentines, they did make clear than any eventual settlement would have to take them into account. The Islanders' demands
Para 6, fourth sentence: Insert after 'Ministers, notably by Mr Ridley in December 1979 and again in January 1981, and then by the Home Secretary
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CONFIDENTIAL
/Para 6