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British Nationality
[22 JULY 1981 ]
out treatment of these dependencies, is in fact vitiated by the completely different treatment which they are giving to Gibraltar and to Hong Kong in this crucially important respect.
The Lord Chancellor: I perfectly understood my noble friend the first time he said it and it still seems to me that he blurred the distinction. His argument appears to be that because you deal with immigration, with exceptions, you have got to deal with nationality, with exceptions. That appears to me to be exactly the sin of which the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, was complaining.
If the noble and learned Lord directly opposite me will forgive me, I do not propose to pursue the pari- cular line of thought which he very interestingly, if he will allow me to say so, put forward because it seemed to me to vitiate the whole case for the amendment. He was, if he will forgive my saying so, sufficiently intelligent to realise that the amendment wrecks the whole conception of the Bill, unless we remodel it on the lines which he was about to propose in another amendment, which of course he would like the Com- mittee to do. But I would say respectfully to those who may at subsequent stage differ from the noble and learned Lord that he, like the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, to adopt Lord Renton's phrase, “Let the cat out of the bag ”.
The point which we all understand about the amend- ment is that it is motivated by a sincere feeling of friendship and loyalty for the people of Gibraltar. That we all recognise. Although, unlike my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter, I cannot claim an ancestor actually present at the siege, if only because I do not know who at the date of the siege my ancestors were, I have no doubt at all that if this point were the true and only issue under debate the amendment would be carried nemine dissentiente. We would all of us, I think, express undying attachment to our friends on the Rock. We all remember their sojourn here in exile during the war. We are all aware of the hardships and annoyances they have sustained as a result of the restrictions placed upon them by the Franco régime and not, so I understand, yet lifted, contrary, at least to my belief, to the gentleman's agreement arrived at with the present régime. I believe we would all assent to the doctrine that there can be no question of the completion of the Spanish application to join the European Community until these questions are resolved honourably. This is a fact which I think the new Spanish democracy which, like my noble friend who moved the amendment, I wish so well would do well to ponder, quite independently of the result of this debate. I make no reference whatever to the events reported today in the newspapers. I would only say that bad manners usually constitute bad diplomacy.
us.
So far, there can be no controversy whatever between
However, my own suspicions with regard to the amendment begin to be aroused when I examine its actual terms. In relation to its avowed object its terms are, to say the least, somewhat surprising for, strange to relate, there is no reference at all in the amendment to Gibraltar. I was brought up to believe that one does not take advantage of inadvertent mis- takes by one's opponents. That is the tradition of my profession. But this was not an inadvertent
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mistake. That became obvious as the debate went on. It was not that they forgot to mention Gibraltar in the amendment. It was no oversight. The amendment was, and is, deliberate and therefore has become of the essence of the case which they are asking the Com- mittee to accept.
They realise, of course, as did the noble and learned Lord opposite, that if an amendment had been intro- duced mentioning Gibraltar by name--and how easy it would have been to draft such a document--it could not have been justified on principle. It would have been wholly unjustifiable. There is no reason, if it was stated in bald and unambiguous terms, to justify an amendment in favour of Gibraltar so described. Therefore, they have had to invent a different principle in order to justify what they want to do, and the whole issue at stake in this debate is whether the new principle which the amendment contains is one which can be accepted as a principle.
It is stated to be an amendment in favour of two particular classes of persons, both described by ref- erence to Article 227(4) of the EEC treaty, the nationals and the persons entitled to abode of a particular type of British dependency of a particular class. For reference, the article of the treaty provides that the treaty shall apply to the European territories for whose external relations a member state is responsible.
I will pause here to make two points in answer to two of the points raised by noble Lords who have supported the amendment. In the first place I must tell the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, that he was, for once, in error when he suggested that the Gibraltarians can derive from the European treaty their right to enter this country. They cannot. They can derive their right to enter France, Germany, Holland, Luxem- bourg, or Denmark by reference to Article 227(4); they cannot derive their right to enter this country, which depends in law upon the very assurances upon which so much cold water has been poured.
I pause, secondly, to say to my noble friend Lord Bethell that to try to build an edifice on Article 227(4) of the Treaty and then to talk about the reference in the Labour Party Manifesto to withdraw from the Community altogether, as if he was giving the citizens of Gibraltar something desirable or additional or permanent, was one of the most startling pieces of inconsistency I have heard in debate during the course of my experience in this House. I hope, of course, that it will never happen, whether because they change their minds or because they are defeated by the electorate. But, of course, if the Labour Party succeeded in pulling this country out of the EEC, they would pull this amendment out of the Bill altogether. The fact is that the insecurity-whatever it may be-which the manifesto of the Labour Party gives to our membership of the Community is precisely something which no Member on this side of the House, or of the Liberal Party, ought to seek to build into this Bill by reference to the very principle upon which the amendment is based.
The two classes of person I mentioned earlier are the nationals of Gibraltar and the persons entitled to abode of a particular type of British dependency of a particular class. Again may I pause to reassure the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Carver, that if the facts be as he has stated, his British citizenship would
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