Statute of Westminster, is described as the 'British Commonwealth of Nations: Powell said that the answer was that because the British Nationality Act 1948 had removed allegiance to the crown as the basis of citizenship and replaced that with nine separate citizenships combined together by statute. Therefore, if any of these nine countries became republics the law would not change, as happened with India when it became a republic. Furthermore, Powell went on, the essence of unity was "that all the parts recognise they would sacrifice themselves to the interests of the whole." He denied that there was in India that "recognition of belonging to a greater whole which involves the ultimate consequence in certain circumstances of self-sacrifice in the interests of the whole." Therefore, the title 'Head of the Commonwealth', the third major change, was "essentially a sham. They are essentially something which we have invented to blind ourselves to the reality of the position." These changes were "greatly repugnant" to Powell: For the rest of his life, Powell regarded this speech as the finest he ever delivered (rather than the much more well-known 1968 anti-immigration speech). In mid-November 1953, Powell secured a place on the 1922 Committee's executive at the third attempt. Butler also invited him onto the committee that reviewed party policy for the general election, which he attended until 1955. Powell was a member of the Suez Group of MPs who were against the removal of British troops from the Suez Canal, because such a move would demonstrate, Powell argued, that the UK could no longer maintain a position there, and that any claim to the Suez Canal would therefore be illogical. However, after the troops had left in June 1956 and the Egyptians nationalised the Canal a month later, Powell opposed the attempt to retake the canal in the Suez Crisis because he thought the British no longer had the resources to be a world power. In and out of office Junior Housing Minister On 21 December 1955, Powell was appointed parliamentary secretary to Duncan Sandys at the Ministry of Housing. He called it "the best ever Christmas box". In early 1956, he spoke for the Housing Subsidies Bill in the Commons and argued for the rejection of an amendment that would have hindered slum clearances. He also spoke in support of the Slum Clearances Bill, which provided entitlement for full compensation for those who