TNAG-0660-FCO40-809-Implications-for-Hong-Kong-of-changes-in-British-nationality-1977 — Page 192

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DURFIÐ.

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connections with the United Kingdom by descent;

the proposed restrictions on dual nationality will not be well-received in many quarters, particularly in Australia where both the

Commonwealth Government and individual British

immigrants are likely to be upset.

6. It will be necessary to justify these features on the fol- lowing grounds:-

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2. It is the aim of the new scheme that in the long

run British Citizens will have a right of entry into Britain and British Overseas Citizens &

right of entry to a dependency. If British Overseas Citizens with no right of entry to a dependency were able to transmit their citizenship, large numbers of British Overseas Citizens would be perpetuated who had no right of entry either to the United Kingdon or to a dependency. The confusion arising from the present scheme of citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies would remain. Dependents of British Overseas Citizens without close ties of descent with

a colony would be expected to acquire local citizen-

ship.

b. Consular registration of births overseas beyond the

first generation prolongs the holding of United Kingdom nationality to a point where the practical connection with the United Kingdom may be tenuous. It results in the proliferation of dual citizens. Special arrangements may be made for the children born overseas of British Citizens by descent work- ing abroad in the national interest.

c. In Members of the Commonwealth British emigrants have always been expected to identify with their new country; there has never been the equivalent

of consular registration of births in the Commonwealth. Under the new scheme, although a man who takes eg, Australian Citizenship, would lose his British Citizenship, a wife born in the United Kingdom would transmit her British Citizenship to her children

wherever bom.

CONFIBENTIAL