Legislative Background
3. The British Nationality Act of 1948 created the status
of Citizenship of the UK and Colonies (CUKC), for those who
had ties with the UK or the then existing colonies.
Subsequently, this status was lost by those connected with
the colonies as they became independent.
4.
Until the enactment of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act
in 1962, Commonwealth citizens, including CUKCs from Hong
Kong, had an unrestricted right to enter the UK to live or
work here. That Act effectively withdrew this right. The
Immigration Act 1971 distinguished between two classes of
CUKC, one with the right of abode in the UK and the other
without such a right. Hong Kong CUKCS had no right of abode
in the UK, unless they were entitled to it under the
Immigration Act 1971 on the grounds of birth, descent or
settlement in the UK. This situation was reflected in the
British Nationality Act 1981 (BNA 1981) which brought nationality law and immigration laws into line. It replaced the unitary CUKC status by three main categories of citizenship British Citizenship, British Dependent Territories Citizenship (BDTC) and British Overseas Citizenship (BOC). Of these, only British citizenship
automatically carried the right of abode in the UK.
1981 did not change the rights of Hong Kong British
nationals.
The BNA
Post-1997 position
5. The nationality and immigration position of Hong Kong
BDTCS after 1997 was addressed in the two Memoranda
exchanged by HMG and the Chinese Government when the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration was signed. The British
Memorandum recognised that no-one could continue to derive
BDTC status from a connection with Hong Kong after it ceased
to be a British dependent territory. Accordingly, the new
status of British Nationals (Overseas) (BN (0)) was created
under the Hong Kong (British Nationality) Order 1986. This
status, which does not carry the right of abode in the UK,
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