CONFIDENTIAL
4. n the case of the Falkland Islands the position seems yet more ifficult to counter. The situation there is different in that we
are getting virtually no direct reaction addressed to us from the Falkland Islands. The Falkland Islands Office lobbied MPS a month or two ago, and may still be doing so; and Ministerial and other visits to the Falkland Islands are no doubt hearing reaction on the spot. But there are no proposals other than that the Falkland Islands should be incorporated in the British scheme of citizenship; and there is nothing that I can see that could be done in the Bill in any other way which might please the Islanders. (I should add that at a meeting of FCO Ministers last week Mr Ridley was attracted to the idea of separate citizenships for dependencies, now or later, and appeared to think that this would please the Islanders). But are there any other possibilities apart from the assurances of their sympathetic treatment in the event of difficulties for those Islanders who do not have a legal entitlement to right of abode in the UK?
0.
itself
It is obvious from the above that I think, there is little that one can do by way of changes in the Bill to appease Gibrlatar and the Falkland Islands. But there may be things we can do outside the Bill by way of statements or visits; it may be possible to mount some essentially PR exercises; and we need to think perhaps most of all how to deal with the Parliamentary lobbies in Westminster.
I should be grateful for an urgent response to Mr Luce's request.
6.
5 March 1981
CONFIDENTIAL
hones
W Jones
Nationality and Treaty Department
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