Eloquent but wrong.tt wrote:Interesting. I am listening to what you're saying, and willing to go along with you if I am convinced.
If they ARE full British citizens, why can't they get normal British passports, like all other full British citizens and British Overseas Territories citizens?(unless they satisfy the ancestry or 5 yr tests, see above).People connected with the Crown Dependencies are *full* British citizens. The EU free movement of labour rights issue only affects the way other governments treat them, not the United Kingdom government.
Agreed, because of the EU agreements at the time, the qualification of "holder is not entitled to benefit from European Community provisions relating to employment or establishment" might have to still go in their normal UK passports.
No, the reason the passports are different, amongst other things surely is that, without drawing too much on any similarities with the BOTC passport, it is a sign of a kind of Belonger Status to the territories of the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. And a way for the British government to distinguish them, and this is done entirely under the auspices of "UK law", and not EU law ie, affecting the way the UK Govt treats them.
Why do it otherwise?
The type of passport that is issued to BCs from the Islands depends entirely on where they are when they apply. If they apply to the UKPS while they are in mainland UK, they receive completely standard UK passports of the type issued to every other BC in the UK. The only difference is the endorsement, printed at the same time as the data page, to the effect that they are not entitled to benefit from EU provisions on settlement and establishment. The same applies if they are abroad, and apply to a British Consular post for a passport.
The reason that BCs from the Overseas Territories get standard UK passports is that virtually all of their BC passports are issued by either the UKPS or by a British consular post in a neighbouring country. Apart from Falklands (where the islanders have been British citizens since 1983) and Gibraltar (which is part of the EU) the OT governments issue only non-standard passports with "British Passport" across the top of the cover and the name of the territory across the bottom - no EU language translations inside, and no reference to the EU on the cover. Nearly 100% of the passports issued by the Caribbean OTs refer only to the holder's status as a BOTC. I gather that the logic is that, while (say) Bermudian BCs are EU nationals - because BCs are EU nationals - Bermuda as a territory has no connection with the EU, and it would not therefore be appropriate for them to issue passports in the EU common format, with EU on the cover as well as the name of the territory.
Incidentally, you're wrong to say that BDTCs could be naturalised as British citizens. They could not. Their route to British citizenship before the BOTA was through registration which (unlike naturalisation) was an entitlement, following five years residence in UK. (Apart from Falklands, which was catered for by the British Nationality (Falkland Islands) Act 1983, and Gibraltarians, who did not have to reside in UK in order to qualify for registration).
A symptom, I suspect, of what a couple of other posters here have described as the most efficient and/or best naturalisation service in the world, achieving top marks for both speed and superficiality!