Criticisms
Critics argued that one of the main political motivations behind the new law was to deny most Hong Kong-born ethnic Chinese the right of residency in the United Kingdom in the time preceding the Sino-British Joint Declaration in 1985 and later the handover of Hong Kong (then the largest British colony), to the People's Republic of China in 1997. However, persons from Hong Kong had lost the automatic right to live in the United Kingdom in 1962, and the Act did not change the substance of that fact.
The act is also seen as a minor factor in precipitating the Falklands War, as Argentina apparently saw the move as a sign of disengagement of the United Kingdom from its Falklands dependency. After the war, full British citizenship was granted to the Falkland Islands.
Other criticisms were levelled at the time at the removal of the automatic right to citizenship by birth in the United Kingdom. However, because UK-born children of permanent residents are automatically British, the number of non-British children born in the United Kingdom is relatively small. Special provisions made in the Act (for those who do not have another nationality and for those who lived a long time in the United Kingdom) meant there is little pressure for any change to the current law. Similar legislation has been enacted in Australia (1986), the Republic of Ireland (2005) and New Zealand (2006).
Read more about this topic: British Nationality Act 1981
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