英国为何不会为香港修改《英国国籍法》，为香港的英国国民提供英国公民身份吗？

 威尔逊已经看到了人才的流失，因为聪明和积极的人把他们的钱带出了香港，在海外找到了居留权或公民权。

美国、加拿大和澳大利亚都拥有强大的粤语社区，是最受欢迎的目的地之一。

六四之后，官员们意识到，焦虑正在变得严重。

警方的犯罪（A1）部门和特别部门雇用了一些官员，他们的工作是监视和侦查与香港地下共产党有关的个人以及与大陆有政治联系的强大有组织犯罪集团。

海关和移民部门也向英国人提供重要的机密信息。

对官员来说，视而不见或改变忠诚度的诱惑是显而易见的。

此外，最低级的香港警察也知道成为边界另一边的公安局的仆人意味着什么。

一位研究香港警务史的专家黄锦程这样说。

党的领导认为 "专业 "警察是为革命目的服务的国家工具......在党的领导下，"官僚主义"、"法律 "和 "职业 "都不允许凌驾于党和群众之上...... "专业 "官员首先是革命干部。

 

Wilson had already watched the brain drain as bright and motivated people took their money out of Hong Kong and found residence rights or citizenship overseas. The United States, Canada and Australia, all of which had strong Cantonese-speaking communities, were among the favourite destinations. After June Fourth officials realised that anxiety was becoming acute. The police Crime (A1) Department and the Special Branch employed officers whose work entailed surveillance and detection of individuals connected to the underground Communist Party in Hong Kong and of powerful organised crime groups with political connections on the mainland. The customs and immigration departments also furnished the British with important classified information. The temptation for officers to turn a blind eye or to change loyalties was obvious. In addition, the most junior Hong Kong police officer knew what it meant to be a servant of the Public Security Bureau across the border. A specialist in the history of policing in Hong Kong, Kam C. Wong, put it like this: ‘The party leadership considers “professional” police an instrument of the state to serve revolutionary ends … with the Party in the lead neither “bureaucracy” nor “law” nor “profession” is allowed to stand above the Party and the masses … a “professional” officer is above all a revolutionary cadre.’

 

威尔逊行政委员会中的大人物和小人物都坚持认为必须有所作为。

该委员会的高级成员Lydia Dunn飞往伦敦，在唐宁街10号与撒切尔夫人对质，热情地呼吁所有有资格获得英国护照的香港人获得正式公民身份和在英国生活的权利。

她发现首相对大屠杀感到震惊，手里拿着一张照片，照片上一个人站在北京长安街上的坦克队伍中。

尽管撒切尔夫人的心被香港的困境折磨得支离破碎，但她仍然保持着坚毅的头脑，她将使她在殖民地最狂热的崇拜者中的一些人感到失望。

 

The great and the good on Wilson’s Executive Council were adamant that something must be done. The council’s senior member, Lydia Dunn, flew to London to confront Mrs Thatcher in 10 Downing Street with a passionate call for all Hong Kong people who were eligible for British passports to be granted full citizenship and the right to live in Britain. She found the prime minister appalled by the massacre and clutching a copy of the photograph of a single man standing in the path of a line of tanks on Chang’an avenue in Beijing. Although her heart was rent in twain by the plight of Hong Kong, Mrs Thatcher retained a hard head, and she was to disillusion some of her most fervent admirers in the colony.

 

六四之后不久，威尔逊前往伦敦会见首相，与官员们商谈，并向香港协会发表讲话。

总督认为，给予香港的英国护照持有人（实际上只有约125万人持有这种证件）在英国的居留权将是一项有益的保险政策，将大大增强人们的信心。

他认为，事实上，没有多少人会利用他们的权利在英国永久定居。

威尔逊发现自己陷入了困境。

他接受了为他治理的人民说话的道德责任，但他也是一个现实主义者。

很明显，要让数百万香港华人享有在英国生活的权利，会有激烈的政治阻力。

在最好的情况下，与撒切尔夫人的对话很容易陷入僵局。

 

Shortly after June Fourth, Wilson went to London to meet the prime minister, to confer with officials and to speak to the Hong Kong Association. The governor believed that giving the right of abode in the United Kingdom to Hong Kong’s British passport holders – only about 1.25 million actually held the documents – would be a helpful insurance policy which would greatly boost confidence. He felt that in fact, not many people would use their right to settle permanently in Britain. Wilson found himself in a predicament. He accepted the moral duty to speak up for the people he governed, but he was also a realist. It was obvious that there would be stiff political resistance to giving the right to live in Britain to millions of Hong Kong Chinese. Conversations with Mrs Thatcher were apt to be sticky at the best of times.

 

有一个勇敢的努力，从困境中挽回了一些荣誉。

6月21日，在上议院的一次辩论中，前港督麦理浩在退休后大声疾呼，告诉他的同僚们，他已经改变了对英国对其自1841年以来所治理的地区的义务的想法。

决定性的解决方案是修改《英国国籍法》，为香港的英国国民提供英国公民身份。

这样做的目的是为了鼓励他们留在香港工作的保险，因为大多数人都希望这样做。

在过去，我曾要求提供一个最后的家。

其他人则要求获得入境权或居留权。

这一切最终都归结为同一件事--公民身份。

 

There was a brave effort to salvage some honour from the predicament. From retirement, the former governor Murray MacLehose spoke out in a debate in the House of Lords on 21 June to tell his peers that he had changed his mind about British obligations to those it had governed since 1841: ‘The decisive solution would be to amend the British Nationality Act to provide Hong Kong British nationals with British citizenship. The object of doing that would be an insurance to encourage them to stay at their work in Hong Kong, as most wish to do. In the past I have asked for a home of last resort. Others have asked for the right of entry or the right of abode. It all comes down to the same thing in the end – citizenship.’

 

外交部部长格莱纳瑟勋爵对政府的回应是暗淡的："我们都很清楚，对这个国家来说，一个大规模的新移民承诺会带来非常实际的困难。

给予所有来自香港的人自动居留权不是一个现实的选择。

 

The government response from a foreign office minister, Lord Glenarthur, was bleak: ‘We are all well aware of the very real difficulties which would be posed by a massive new immigration commitment for this country. Granting automatic right of abode here to all people from Hong Kong cannot be a realistic option.’

 

最终找到了一个务实的解决方案。

1989年秋天，政府同意根据英国国籍甄选计划向五万名从事关键职业的人及其家人发放正式的英国护照，这一决定在1990年由议会法案正式确定。

申请人必须掌握一份32页的表格和一个复杂的积分系统才能获得资格。

教育、家庭关系和职业都被考虑在内。

有人抱怨说，这个过程被设计得如此令人生畏，以至于成为一种威慑。

但威尔逊认为这是一个 "经过深思熟虑的 "计划："五万个家庭是很多人。

重要的是，那些可能面临风险的人应该被纳入其中。

他说，一些公务员，如安全部门的官员，显然是属于 "必须要做的 "类别的候选人。

然后是企业家、商人、学术界人士、律师和其他专业人士。

我们需要制定一个计划，让那些对香港的未来很重要的人拥有一份保险，使他们不会离开香港。

这就是选择的指导原则。

 

A pragmatic solution was eventually found. In the autumn of 1989 the government agreed to issue full British passports to fifty thousand people in key professions, and their families, under the British Nationality Selection Scheme, a decision formalised by an Act of Parliament in 1990. Applicants had to master a 32-page form and a complicated system of points to qualify. Education, family ties and career were all taken into account. There were complaints that the process was designed to be so daunting that it acted as a deterrent. But Wilson defended it as ‘a remarkably well thought out’ scheme: ‘Fifty thousand families is a lot of people. It was important that people who might be at risk should be included in that.’ Some public servants, like officers in the security services, he said, were obvious candidates who fell in to the ‘got to be done’ category. Then there were entrepreneurs, business people, academics, lawyers and other professionals. ‘We needed to devise a scheme whereby people who were important for the future of Hong Kong should have an insurance policy so that they wouldn’t leave Hong Kong. That was the guiding principle for selection.’