British Nationality Act 1981
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
The British Nationality Act 1981 was an Act of Parliament passed by the British Parliament. The purpose of the Act was in part to reclassify "United Kingdom and Colonies citizens" into three categories: British citizenship; British Dependent Territory citizenship and British Overseas citizenship. The Act also restricted the right of non-British citizens to enter and stay in the United Kingdom. The Act came into force on 1 January, 1983, effectively renaming the status of British (Crown) Colony as Dependent Territory.
The passing of this act is widely believed to be a precursor to the Falklands War, as the Argentines interpreted it as disengagement, and believed that the British were willing to back away if the islands were invaded. Full UK citizenship was restored to Falkland Islanders by British Nationality Act 1983.
The Act has been superseded by the British Overseas Territories Act 2002 which granted full British citizenship to all British overseas territories including the Falkland Islands.
