Canadian Citizen? NOT.

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

1. Mike, pre-1947 Newfoundlanders may be British citizens.
2. If you don't need a passport, and some years back Kiwis were miffed that the Aussies suddenly demanded passports for those who wanted to cross the Tasman, do you use an identity card?
3. I had a client years ago aged in his Twenties. Mum was a Brit who married a New Zealander, and they then moved to Australia where he was born. Marriage broke up, she returned home with her young kiddie on her passport, and then he found when he wanted to go to France that he was not a Brit! The reason:

a) His father was not British
b) He was not born in the UK
c) In the UK unlike the Netherlands I gather, citizenship is not acquired through the mother.

So what was he? He was either a New Zealander through his late father, even though he had never lived there, or an Australian. In the end he said fuff to the UK and went to Australia House in London, got an Aussie passport and left England for a new life, not having lived there since he was say two at most!

Similar problems arise through West Indian immigrants who came over in the Fifties and Sixties whose countries then went independent. Also certain British islanders such as Montserrations have what is in effect second-class British passports with no right of abode.