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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 30 June 2020 [1].

British Overseas citizen

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Nominator(s): Horserice (talk) 23:31, 13 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about a residual British nationality class that a small number of former colonial subjects still possess. People with this nationality are not considered to have strong connections with the United Kingdom or its overseas territories, and do not have the legal right to live in any place under British sovereignty, even though they are British nationals. It's a peculiar holdover status from the British Empire. People from very far-flung places could potentially qualify for this due to the sheer number of places Britain used to control. Horserice (talk) 23:31, 13 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

Comments from Mike Christie

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  • Added link to first link.
  • Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies (CUKCs) had the unrestricted right to enter and live in the UK, although non-white immigration was systemically discouraged. Immigration from the colonies and other Commonwealth countries was gradually restricted by Parliament from 1962 to 1971... Isn't this contradictory? If CUKCs had the unrestricted right etc until 1983, what was it Parliament restricted between 1962 and 1971? Did they change who had the CUKC status, which would have had the same effect?
  • Yeah, even though all citizens held the same status, they had different rights based on where they were from starting in 1962. I reorganized and added more info there to make it more clear what was happening.
  • CUKCs with the right of abode in the United Kingdom or were closely connected with the UK, Channel Islands: needs to be "who were closely connected", and making it "who had the right of abode" as well might be better.
  • Omitted that part.
  • 1.5 million people[4] who could not be reclassified into either of these statuses and were no longer associated with a British territory became British Overseas citizens. Is this wording precise? It sounds like if they could not be reclassified into either status and were still associated with a British territory did not become British Overseas citizens. Is that correct? If so, what happened to them?
  • Changed wording.
  • The creation of different British nationality classes with a disparity in United Kingdom residency rights between the several classes drew criticism: suggest "The creation of different British nationality classes with disparities in United Kingdom residency rights drew criticism".
  • Done.
  • Parliament ultimately granted remaining BOCs who held no other nationality the right to register as full British citizens in 2002: are there estimates of how many this affected? If there were only a few thousand, it's not as significant a gesture as if there were hundreds of thousands.
  • 35,000. Yes, not that significant.
  • Do we know how many stateless Malaysian BOCs there are?
  • Added estimate.
  • Naturalisation as a British Overseas citizen is not possible: I initially read this as meaning that BOCs could not naturalize to the status of full British citizens, but I think the intended meaning is that you can't become a BOC via naturalization. If so I suggest "It is not possible to become a British Overseas citizen via naturalization".
  • Reworded.
  • Could we get a couple of sentences, or perhaps a small table, showing the differences between BOC status and the other possible classes of British nationality? In particular the difference between BOC and BN(O) seems worth drawing. Having also reviewed the BN(O) article when it was at FAC, I wonder if it makes sense to have these as separate articles? But I suppose a unified article would be too long if we tried to include all the details that you can put in the individual articles. What do you think the final overall structure is going to be for the British nationality articles when they're all done? Where would a reader go to get an overview? An example of the confusion is that when you talk about Hong Kong-resident BOCs I immediately feel I have to go back to the BN(O) article to understand how there can be BOCs in Hong Kong when my memory is that BN(O) was the main way Hong Kong residents could get a British passport.
  • Added a bit on this. Only non-ethnic Chinese Hong Kong residents could become BOCs in this way. You're right, there's very little differentiating the two statuses in terms of exercisable rights. The history of why they exist and possible pathways to full citizenship are what set them apart from each other, and the other classes. I don't know if this article is necessarily the best place for a comparison table? British nationality law has one that can be improved on to illustrate the (lack of) differences.
I think that the goal will be to reduce scope on the main British nationality law article to focus on current rules for obtaining British citizenship and BOTC status, making that article the place for readers to get an overview of what those regulations are now. There should something brief about the residual statuses that leads the reader towards the individual articles. History of British nationality law could probably be merged with the British subject article, which already covers much of the pre-1983 history.
  • Can we concisely define what is meant by "connection to a colony", perhaps in a note? E.g. place of birth? Place of birth of a parent? Right of abode? Long-term residence?
  • Added to first bullet point in Acquisition and loss
  • some current claimants to British nationality through the Sophia Naturalization Act 1705 would receive British Overseas citizenship: suggest "could receive", since there may be no actual cases, or add "if their claim were to succeed" at the end instead.
  • Changed.

That's it for a first pass. This is densely bureaucratic material. That's not a criticism of the article, but it means it's hard to write something that clearly explains the topic. I don't think one pass through has given me a clear picture, so I'll read through again once you've responded to these points, and see if I can come up with suggestions to make it more digestible. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:01, 6 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Mike Christie: Thanks for giving it a read, did a pass on addressing your comments. Horserice (talk) 22:28, 8 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I was going to go through the diff and strike points above, but you've done a pretty significant rewrite, so instead I think I'll start over and do another pass, this time benefitting from having read it once already. Consider all the above points struck. I think your take on the ultimate organization of these articles is reasonable, and I agree the natural place for a table is in the summary article, not here. It might take me a day or two to get some more notes down; I want to have some uninterrupted time and if it doesn't happen tomorrow morning it might not be till towards the end of the week. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:56, 9 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hah yeah, as soon as I started going through material to address those points, I found more and more relevant information and ended up adding this much. No worries about how fast you go through it, I know it's a lot of dense material added during a review, especially for a topic like this. Horserice (talk) 03:42, 9 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Just trying to understand the background, so tell me if this is correct: Between 1948 and 1983, there was only one type of British citizen: CUKC. You could also be a British subject, which was the same thing during that period as a Commonwealth citizen. The two did not overlap, so it was not possible to be both a British subject and a CUKC. Being a British subject did not imply any allegiance to the crown; it only meant that you were a citizen of a country in the Commonwealth, by whatever rule that country had for its citizenship. The rights of a BS changed at various times, with the 1962 and 1971 UK acts impacting their ability to immigrate to the UK, and the individual countries of which the BS might be citizen free to legislate to change the right of a BS to vote in that country if they were not a citizen there. (For example a Canadian citizen could vote in New Zealand -- presumably with some residence requirement -- until 1975.) British subjects were primarily those born in the Dominions, not the colonies, so the two statuses can be seen as dividing the Dominions from the rest of the Commonwealth. A native of Antigua, for example, would have been a CUKC. This status did not change when a colony became independent, so when Antigua and Barbuda became independent in 1981, its citizens (defined by its own laws) were automatically also CUKCs until 1983.

British subject and CUKC statuses did actually overlap. A British subject between 1949 and 1983 was defined as any citizen of the United Kingdom, its colonies, or the other Commonwealth countries. Following your example, a CUKC (including someone from Antigua) could also vote in New Zealand after a period of residence until 1975. As colonies became independent, citizens of new countries that remained in the Commonwealth continued British subject/Commonwealth citizen status. CUKC status was automatically lost when they became independent, but because UK law allowed British subjects automatic rights to settle, citizens of those new countries could immigrate freely to Britain until 1962. There was no differentiation between those born in Dominions or colonies in regulations governing British subject status because the government never thought that non-white people would actually use those rights to go to the UK. A citizen of India or Jamaica would have been able to vote in New Zealand as well, provided that they could actually immigrate there.

From 1983 (via the 1981 act) this changed:

  • CUKCs with right of abode in the UK became British citizens
  • CUKCs with right of abode in a colony became BDTCs -- I see the list of dependent territories is short now, but perhaps it was longer in 1983; for example it would have included Hong Kong.
  • Any other CUKC became a BOC
  • BSs who had citizenship somewhere generally would have qualified to be one of the above three categories. If not, they remained BSs.
British subjects under the 1981 Act were defined as people who were British subjects without citizenship under the 1948 Act, and so would not have been reclassified in one of the other categories.

The 1981 also defined British Protected Persons, though I see in the BPP article that "Parliament severely restricted acquisition of BPP status in 1978", so presumably the 1981 law just redefined it.Subsequently BN(O) was added to deal with Hong Kong's return to Chinese control. BDTCs are now called BOTCs, so this gives us six present categories: British citizens, BDTC, BOC, BPP, BN(O), BS.

Is this outline basically correct? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:45, 9 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Everything else you wrote on the 1981 Act seems correct. This also took me a while to understand correctly, British nationality law is just so unnecessarily complicated. Horserice (talk) 21:10, 9 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, haven't had much time to look at this. I might post on your talk page when I get time rather than filling up this FAC. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:49, 11 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Coord note

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Sorry but with only one detailed review after a month and a half I'm afraid this isn't really going anywhere. It might be worth at least trying PR before another run here. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:25, 30 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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