TNAG-0979-FCO40-1198-Implications-for-Hong-Kong-of-changes-in-British-nationality-1980 — Page 162

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that "British subject" could be withheld from them if the

other two categories had it); and it would mean, despite the

aim at simplification, that we should then have three statuses:

Commonwealth citizenship, British subject, and British or UK

The abandonment of the

Citizenship

Citizen (or dependency citizenship).

term as a common status had been agreed by Ministers and has

at least

been tacitly endorsed by the appropriate Cabinet committee.

Nevertheless, we think that we can make a strong case for re-

opening this question and we are ready to do so.

6. With this in mind we have been examining your preferred

alternatives to CUKC. There appear to be the following options

a) British Subject: Citizen of Hong Kong (or Hong Kong

Citizen).

Comment. This was in the first preference after CUKC

in Cater's telno 95 of 15 January. We think that this

would in reality be creating separate citizenships for

each dependency albeit all in the one Act. Even if it could be argued that it dod not legally create a separate citizenship for Hong Kong it gives every appearance of doing so and HMA in Peking does not like it for this

reason. We should therefore prefer not to pursue this

line. [There may be many other arguments against separate

citizenships for each dependency being created in this

way; for example, it is almost certainly impossible for

the Falkland Islands. It seems doubtful whether EXCO

did realise that this title would mean in effect a

separate citizenship for Hong Kong.]

b)

[British Subject]: Citizen of the British Dependent Territories.

Comment. As we tried to explain in telno 1(Personal) to

Anguilla of 4 January, if we are to avoid creating

separate citizenships for each dependency there must be a

single collective title in the Act to describe the status

of the belongers of all dependencies. The only way in

which we could try to satisfy the desire of several Governors for the inclusion of the name of the dependency

/in

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