TNAG-1190-FCO40-1492-Implications-for-Hong-Kong-of-changes-in-the-British-nationa-1982 — Page 80

has changed. The inhabitants of the other dependencies still

do not accept, any more than they did last year, that the Falkland

Islanders should, alone among the inhabitants of our remaining

dependent territories, automatically be British citizens.

21. My Lords, would invite you for a moment to look at this from

the point of view of the other dependent territories. They have not

of course been forcibly occupied by a foreign power nor is such

occupation likely. But for some of them their relationship with

their neighbours poses very real problems and causes very serious

anxieties. I need only mention the worries in Hong Kong over future

relations with the People's Republic of China or in Gibraltar vis a vis

Spain. If the Falkland

Islanders, alone of the inhabitants of the dependent territories

outside Europe, receive British citizenship, then the remaining

dependent territories are bound to question the meaning and value of

the citizenship with which they are left. It will be suggested that,

if that citizenship has proved in the case of the Falkland Islanders

insufficient to demonstrate the United Kingdom's determination to fulfil

her obligations, then it must be insufficient in the case of the other

dependencies also.

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