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Banished islanders are British again

This article is more than 21 years old
From the equator to the Antarctic, 200,000 exiles will next week be full UK citizens, writes Anthony Browne.

It is a tiny drop of paradise, lapped by balmy waters. As one of the most remote islands in the world, it is home to prehistoric plants and animals unseen anywhere else for millions of years. And it is the final resting place of one of history's most notorious leaders.

Now the island of St Helena, whose only contact with the outside world is an infrequent boat, is also home to the United Kingdom's newest citizens.

The 7,000 inhabitants of the island - famous as the scene of Napoleon's exile - will next week become full British citizens, giving them the right to leave their island and live and work in the UK.

Some islanders call it a triumph, granted only after years of campaigning, including representations to the United Nations and threats of legal action under international human rights laws. Others warn that it will spark a mass exodus from the impoverished island, depriving it of young workers that the community needs to survive.

St Helena, which calls itself 'the lost county of England', is one of 14 British overseas territories whose inhabitants will this month be granted equal status to those born in the mother country. These territories spread from the Antarctic to the Caribbean to the deep Pacific, and include some of the most romantic places on earth.

Many are sun-soaked tropical islands, some are tax havens and one is the most remote inhabited island on the planet. One has been destroyed by a volcano, and another has been the subject of repeated Hollywood films. Unhappily for UK citizens tired of chilly Britain, the new law will not work in reverse: citizens of the UK will not have the right to go and live and work in the overseas territories.

The British Overseas Territories Act, which comes into force on 21 May - the 500th anniversary of the discovery of St Helena - will grant the right to live and work in the UK to 200,000 people in Anguilla, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, the British Antarctic Territory, Montserrat, Pitcairn Island (population 43), Tristan da Cunha, Ascension Island, and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

At the moment they all have 'British Dependency Passports', categorising them as second-class citizens with no rights to stay in the UK.

Some of the islanders say it will transform life, others that it will have little effect. In some territories the move is seen as an attempt by the British Government to undermine independence movements.

Basil George, a former headteacher on St Helena, was one of the leaders of the campaign to get full British citizenship. 'It is the most important thing happening on the island. Everyone has been talking about it. We have the full support of all the saints [islanders].'

But St Helena is an old-style colony, ruled by a UK-appointed governor and an elite of expat administrators. The local workers earn an average of just £50 a week, even though the cost of living is high because everything has to be imported by boat. Unemployment is around 15 per cent, and many people have already had to migrate to Ascension Island or the flourishing Falklands in search of work, sending money back home to their families. From next week, they will be able to live and work anywhere in the European Union.

Mike Olsson, chief executive of the news group St Helena Media, said: 'More and more youngsters will leave. Quite a few will go permanently.' The effect on the island could be devastating, he warned. 'It is good for the individual but I'm not sure it is so good for the island. We'll be losing a lot of essential workers who we need here. We've already got huge problems with teachers and nurses - they get more money cleaning in the Falklands than they do working as a teacher here.'

St Helena was uninhabited until it was discovered by accident in 1502 by a Portuguese boat sailing around Africa. The first full-time inhabitant was a Portuguese convict, Fernão Lopez, who lived there on his own for 30 years. Eventually it was claimed by the British and run by the East India Company which used it as a staging post for boats sailing between England and the subcontinent. With the opening of the Suez Canal, the island lost much of its strategic significance and became an isolated backwater.

The islanders had always enjoyed full UK citizenship, until Margaret Thatcher stripped them - and all other overseas territories - of it in 1981 in order to stop the people of Hong Kong moving to Britain before the handover to China. She only restored full citizenship to the Falkland islanders after the war with Argentina.

'It is a question of basic human rights. You can't have people who have always been British, and take away their nationality. People felt trapped on St Helena,' said Basil George, who took the issue to the United Nations Human Rights Committee.

Now the islanders will be able to freely attend university, train or work in Britain and the rest of the EU. The effect of this may be more dramatic on the few residents of Tristan da Cunha in the middle of the South Atlantic - the remotest inhabited island in the world. Its citizens are effectively imprisoned on the island and don't even have the right to move 1,300 miles to their nearest neighbour, the relative metropolis of St Helena. Next week they will have the right to live anywhere in the EU.

The Act will also have an impact on the troubled Caribbean island of Montserrat, recently devastated by volcanic eruptions which made much of the island uninhabitable. More than half of the population of 10,000 left the island, with many given permanent leave to remain in the UK. 'Now they can all work in Europe. They can go the US without a visa. Psychologically, people will feel more British and more involved,' said Janice Panton, the Montserrat government's UK representative.

But Montserrat has a vibrant independence movement, and they see the granting of citizenship as a deliberate attempt to undermine the will of the people to finally start ruling themselves.

In territories close to North America, islanders say that getting full citizenship will make little difference. Bermuda - the third richest territory in the world - is shrugging off the new law. 'We don't know what the take-up will be. We have no idea. There are some people in Bermuda who feel their Britishness, but the majority don't. It's not a big issue,' said John Drinkwater, the island's Cabinet Secretary. He said he was certain there would be no mass exodus. 'We are sure people won't leave. We are so far away from the UK and so close to North America that most of our visitors and trade are with North America - that's the way that we look,' he said.

Bill Samuel, UK representative of the Turks and Caicos Islands, said: 'They don't have strong cultural links with the UK. If it improves the access to education in the UK, it could be the best investment the British Government could make.'

But Samuel admitted that the new right to citizenship would have little impact. The Turks and Caicos have done well out of tourism, and now have full employment, drawing in workers from surrounding islands. 'For the average islander it won't have much effect. Their links are with the US - they are 90 minutes' flying time from Miami, and that is where they go shopping,' he said.

anthony.browne@observer.co.uk

· Anguilla

· Bermuda

· British Antarctic Territory

· British Indian Ocean Territory

· British Virgin Islands

· Cayman Islands

· Falkland Islands

· Gibraltar

· Montserrat

· Pitcairn Islands

· St Helena and Tristan da Cunha

· South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands

· The Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia in Cyprus

· The Turks and Caicos Islands

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