British Nationality Act 1948
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| Long title | An Act to make provision for British nationality and for citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid. |
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| Citation | 11 & 12 Geo. 6 c. 56 |
| Dates | |
| Royal assent | 30 July 1948 |
| Commencement | 1 January 1949 |
| Text of statute as originally enacted | |
| Revised text of statute as amended | |
The British Nationality Act 1948 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that created the status of "Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies" (CUKC) as the national citizenship of the United Kingdom and its colonies.
The Act, which came into effect on 1 January 1949, was passed in consequence of the 1947 Commonwealth conference on nationality and citizenship, which had agreed that each of the Commonwealth member states would legislate for its own citizenship, distinct from the shared status of "Commonwealth citizen" (formerly known as "British subject"). Similar legislation was also passed in most of the other Commonwealth countries.
The Act formed the basis of the United Kingdom's nationality law until the British Nationality Act 1981 came into force in 1983. However, the concept of a common Commonwealth citizenship had already been progressively eroded from 1962 onwards by British legislation targeted against Commonwealth immigrants.
Broadly speaking, nationals of the United Kingdom, the Dominions, and the various British colonies had always shared a common citizenship status of "British subject". However, in 1946 the Canadian parliament passed the Canadian Citizenship Act, which established a separate Canadian citizenship. In response, a Commonwealth conference met in London in 1947, where it was agreed that each of the Commonwealth member states would be free to legislate for its own citizenship, while still retaining elements of a common Commonwealth citizenship. The resulting legislation passed by the United Kingdom for itself and its colonies was the British Nationality Act 1948, which was introduced by a Labour government. Legislation passed in the other Commonwealth countries included Australia's Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948, New Zealand's British Nationality and New Zealand Citizenship Act, 1948, and Southern Rhodesia's Southern Rhodesian Citizenship and British Nationality Act, 1949.
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