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British Nationality
[22 JULY 1981 }
This perhaps I should not call it an assurance qualified statement also causes great concern ari ng Gibraltarians, because it is precisely an abnora zal situation which they fear, and should such an a me situation come to pass then, acco ding to the a given by the Home Secretary- and, of course, Giove n- ments change and Home Secr. ta ies change be possible for the right to enter the United Kingdom I nught to be denied to the peop's of Gibi :ltar.
Our
It is true that under present regulations Gibraltarians have a right to nove and work freely in the European Community.
read recently in However, we newspapers a blueprint put out by the party opposite indicating their intention to withdraw from the European Community, and of course Gibraltarians have read that blueprint as well. So they have no guarantee, either under British law or European law, that they will have anywhere to go; and of course the dark thought rises in their minds that they might at some point be coerced, pushed blackmailed, into allowing themselves to be absorbed into Spain. Indeed, various sections of the Spanish press have made capital out of the present situation and the Bill as proposed. They have indicated that the Bill as it stands would leave the people of Gibraltar more or less without a country, without a full citizenship of any country. And of course they say, "We, the Spanish, are prepared to offer them our citizenship. Fecause the British have denied it to them ". This is something I believe your Lordships will probably put right later today.
We have been told in debate that this is an anomalous situation. singling out one dependent territory from the others. I know the arguments about Hong Kong will be deployed by my noble friend the Minister in a few minutes. I put it to your Lordships that other territories, Hong Kong and elsewhere, do not have the same preoccupation, the same historical background, the same position as Gibraltar has under the treaty within the European Community, with a clearly defined status, signed by the United Kingdom Govern- ment, as United Kingdom nationals for European Community purposes. It will be necessary eventually. when this Bill is passed, for the United Kingdom to clarify and to re-state its position on United Kingdom nationals for Community purposes. How much better it will be if this amendment were passed and the Government can state clearly to our Community partners that a United Kingdom national for EEC purposes is a British citizen, full stop, and not go on to several other paragraphs about this type of citizenship and that type of citizenship, which no other member state possesses.
I know there are many other noble Lords wishing to speak. I will sit down now and hope that we shall have a simulating and helpful debate on this matter. which is of such deep concern to a small but loyal group of British subjects. I beg ta nove.
3.18 p.m.
Lord Hughes: During the Second Reading of this Bill incidated that I would support an all-party amendment on behalf of Gibraltar. My speech then was a short one, and I do not believe that in the circumstances even strong feelings or sincerity require me to make a long speech today. I said then that it was an appropriate subject for all-party support, and
Bill
I am ver
glad to be able to agree with what the noble Lod. Load Bethell, has said, because what he has said g the hst non-party spirit, putting forward what I believe is really a non-party matter. Incidentally, it is probably the first time that I have ever found myself agreeing with the noble Lord. Lord Bethell; but if he continues along this line, it may happen again.
Gibraltar has been British for a very long time and I do not think it is necessary, any more than the noble Lord did, to recapitulate the whole of its history during the centuries. But during the last four decades how they have behaved has been a continuation of the colony's past devotion to Britain. During the last war the bulk of the civilian population was evacuated. This they accepted loyally as part of the war effort. When the war was over they returned, and they returned as British as they had left. When the Spanish dictator found it politically necessary to divert attention from his domestic scene he declared economic war on Gibraltar. Did the Gibraltarians then weigh very carefully the advantages and disadvantages of acceding to the Spanish demands? -certainly they did not. But they acted as we ourselves had done in 1939 when we decided that no longer could we bow before the dictation of Germany. For the Gibraltarians the hardships of the Spanish frontier closure was something to be tackled and overcome, and overcome they certainly have been, not without cost to them. They cannot get their foodstuffs as cheaply as when they came in from Spain, but they have accepted all these consequences.
The Gibraltarians are peaceful, hardworking people and as such I have no doubt that they would welcome a return to normal relations with their Spanish neigh- bours. The closure, however, is not now for them the mortal blow which General Franco had hoped and expected it would be. Why then have they done all that they have done during the last 40 years? Why have they acted as they have acted during the last 14 years? The answer is simple or at least it seems to me to be simple. They are British. They do not wish to be other than British, and they have demon- strated overwhelmingly that when a price had to be paid for being British they were willing to pay it. This is not a ploy of one political party in Gibraltar and I suggest sincerely that this Committee is a very appropriate place to show that it need not be a ploy of one political party in this country.
Along with my CPA colleagues on the delegation last October, I found that the subject that all four parties wished to discuss with us was not the closed frontier with Spain, but the then White Paper on British Nationality. We found ourselves in serious and long talks with members of those four political parties, three of them represented in the Assembly. They were people from what I think I could correctly describe as the moderate right to what I think I could equally correctly describe as the extreme left. We met repre- sentatives of the chamber of commerce and we met representatives of the trade union movement. In all there was unanimity in the view expressed that they did not wish to become what Spanish television propaganda dinned into them day in, day out, week in, week out, that what they were being offered from their British friends was second class citizenship.
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