TNAG-0714-FCO40-910-Future-of-the-Dependent-Territories-1978 — Page 50

Sir A Daff

CONFIDENTIAL AND PERSONAL

HKG 025/2

нка

RECEIV

20 APR 1978

DESK OFFIven

INDEX

PA

Nonw

51

REGISTRY Action Taken

ве

4

M Levoir Mis Formelle & Miss Wills tote When pa

R19/4

CONSERVAITE PARTY POLICY ON THE COMMONWEALTH AND DEPENDENCIES

1. At the suggestion of Mr Davies, Opposition spokesman on

foreign affairs with whom I had some discussion recently about

colonial territories, I was invited to lunch by Mr William

Shelton, MP for Streatham, on 14 April. He was accompanied by

Mr John Ranelagh, a Conservative Research Officer.

2.

19/4

Mr Shelton began by showing me a rough draft of a paper which

he had prepared about Conservative Party policy on the Commonwealth

and Colonial territories. This struck me as a very unthought out

(not to say half-baked) and inadequate document. It muddled up

the independent Commonwealth and the Colonies (Mr Shelton did not

seem to realise that Singapore was an independent country). It

argued in relation to the Commonwealth the case for strengthening

the Commonwealth links without considering adequately what exists

already or European implications. The main idea seemed to be that

there should be a Commonwealth Parliamentary Assembly which should

meet regularly in London and other Commonwealth capitals. The

paper had not thought out either the basis for election to the

Assembly or the functions of the Assembly. Nor had it considered

the bureaucracy which would inevitably go with such an Assembly.

3. On the Colonies the paper was equally half-baked. It envisaged

the Assembly having some kind of responsibility for the Colonies

which would in future be called Commonwealth Crown countries.

These would be administered by the FCO and the Commonwealth

Secretariat in some vague combination.

Independent and dependent

Commonwealth countries would be entitled to delegate to the FCO

CONFIDENTIAL AND PERSONAL

/and