Citizenship
None of the overseas territories has its own nationality status, and all citizens are classed as British Overseas Territories citizens (BOTC). They do however, have legislative independence over immigration, and holding the status of a BOTC does not automatically give a person a right to abode in any of the territories, as it depends on the territory's immigration laws. A territory may issue Belonger status to allow a person classed as a BOTC to reside in the territory that they have close links with. Non-BOTC citizens may acquire Belonger status in order to reside in a particular territory (and may subsequently become naturalised BOTC if they wish).
Historically, most inhabitants of the British Empire held the status of British subject, which was usually lost upon independence. From 1949, British subjects in the United Kingdom and the remaining colonies became citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies. However changes in British immigration and nationality law between 1962 and 1983 saw the creation of a separate British Dependent Territories citizenship (BDTC) with effect from January, 1983. Citizens in most territories were stripped of full British citizenship. This was mainly to prevent a mass exodus of the citizens of Hong Kong to the UK before the agreed handover to China in 1997. Exception was made for the Falkland Islands, which had been invaded in 1982 by Argentina. Full British citizenship was soon returned to the people of Gibraltar due to their friction with Spain.
However, the British Overseas Territories Act 2002 replaced British Dependent Territory citizenship with British Overseas Territories citizenship (BOTC), and restored full British citizenship to all BOTCs except those from the Sovereign Base Areas of Cyprus. This restored to BOTCs the right to reside in the UK.
British citizens however, do not have an automatic right to reside in any of the Overseas Territories. Some territories prohibit immigration, and any visitors are required to seek the permission of the territory's government to live in the territory. As they are used primarily as military bases, Ascension Island and the British Indian Ocean Territory do not allow visitors to the territory unless on official business.
Read more about this topic: British Overseas Territories
Famous quotes containing the word citizenship:
“Our citizenship in the United States is our national character. Our citizenship in any particular state is only our local distinction. By the latter we are known at home, by the former to the world. Our great title is AMERICANS—our inferior one varies with the place.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
“I would wish that the women of our country could embrace ... [the responsibilities] of citizenship as peculiarly their own. If they could apply their higher sense of service and responsibility, their freshness of enthusiasm, their capacity for organization to this problem, it would become, as it should become, an issue of profound patriotism. The whole plane of political life would be lifted.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)
“Bohemia is nothing more than the little country in which you do not live. If you try to obtain citizenship in it, at once the court and retinue pack the royal archives and treasure and move away beyond the hills.”
—O. Henry [William Sydney Porter] (1862–1910)