TNAG-1461-FCO40-1987-Future-of-the-Dependent-Territories-Hong-Kong--Gibraltar-and-1986 — Page 92

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sufficient support in the UN if attempted in connection with the UK dependencies.

We also question whether a partial UK disengagement, implied by the formulae of protected or associated status, would

offer any improvement for the UK over the present status of

the dependencies. We believe that they would do little, particularly in the Caribbean, to relieve the UK of the potential long term costs, instead setting the territories

in new forms of dependence which might complicate the road

to sovereignty.

It

Integration with the UK also has practical limitations.

would need to be combined with the granting of UK citizenship

and, for the reasons given above, could not therefore be used

until after 1997. It also brings with it the assumption of

representation at Westminster. The implications of this are

beyond the scope of this paper but, at the very least, could be said to pose quite new, and possibly unacceptable, constitutional

difficulties.

15 Against these general thoughts what options are available

for each of the dependencies? In the Caribbean and Bermuda there is no reason for HMG to consider a major change from the present course aimed at greater independence for the territories. With the right amount and type of assistance they are perfectly capable of taking greater control of their own affairs leading to

eventual independence (see Sections VI and VII). Though the

defence facilities on Bermuda will remain valuable both to the US

and ourselves for the foreseeable future there is no reason why access need be threatened by independence (the US has for example

retained its access to the facilities on the independent

Bahamas). Moreover as regards the Caribbean it makes little

sense in military terms and in a region so close to the US and so bound up with American security for the UK indefinitely to plan

to spend precious resources which could be better deployed elsewhere. The political arguments are more complex. Experience shows that maintaining a commitment as a way of influencing or "moderating" the US's actions in its own backyard has no

credibility. US actions in Grenada, Nicaragua and earlier the

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