д/опочна
Mr Layden den
CONFIDENTIAL
ра Mi
16
FROM:
D C Wilson
DATE:
3 January 1986
HONG KONG: BRITISH NATIONALITY ORDER IN COUNCIL
1. As you know, I spoke to the Governor this morning on the telephone at his request about the telegrams on the "no visa" endorsement. The main points he made were as follows:
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2.
i) UMELCO, at a meeting today, had decided by 20-13 that they would not send a delegation to London to lobby. Instead there would be a further LEGCO debate on Wednesday to reinforce Hong Kong's Concern about the three points in Miss Dunn's letter to MPs and to ask the Hong Kong Government to give their support.
(i)
The issue was seen as very important in Hong Kong. He "would not like to be Mr Renton at his press conference if the decision went against introducing an endorsement".
iii) He believed that HMG should now "bite the bullet"
about an endorsement:
after all, the Chinese had also
given ground on right of abode.
As you heard, I argued that the Home Office case was a strong one: an endorsement such as Hong Kong were seeking would be misleading and lay Ministers open to accusations later. I could not myself see Ministers taking a different view about this. We should however try to see whether there were alternative measures which might allay some of Hong Kong's fears without being misleading. The Governor could not himself produce any. He reacted negatively to my tentative suggestion of an endorsement which would balance no visas with normal immigration requirements.
3.
I said that I understood the Governor's concern to give a clear Ministerial view to EXCO when they met on 7 January. We would endeavour to do so. Whether UMELCO then reversed their decision about lobbying would be up to them; but, whatever happened, we must avoid any accusation that EXCO or UMELCO had been misled about HMG's intentions.
12
D
Wilson
CONFIDENTIAL
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