citizens by registration were removed and instead they were to be expected to apply for naturalisation if they wanted to acquire British citizenship. Irish citizens, however, who were, or claim British subject nationality retain their right to acquire British citizenship nationality through registration. Special provision was made for persons from Gibraltar to acquire British citizenship. Foreign spouses were treated equally under the law. Wives of British men could no longer acquire British nationality purely by marriage and husbands of British women were afforded the right to acquire British nationality on equal terms. British Crown Colonies were renamed British Dependent Territories (subsequently amended to British Overseas Territories) The Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, references to which had been construed as references to colonies under the British Nationality Act 1948, were now to be construed as being part of the United Kingdom for nationality purposes. In some cases, transitional arrangements were made that preserved certain aspects of the old legislation. Most of these expired on 31 December 1987, five years after the Act came into force. Criticisms Critics argued that one of the main political motivations behind the new law was to deny most Hong Kong-born ethnic Chinese the right of residency in the United Kingdom in the time preceding the Sino-British Joint Declaration in 1984 and later the handover of Hong Kong (then the largest British colony by population), to the People's Republic of China in 1997. However, persons from Hong Kong had lost the automatic right to live in the United Kingdom in 1968, and the Act did not change this. The Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968 made a number of changes to the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962, beginning with amending the definition of to whom the Act applied. By comparison: Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962: Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968: The stripping of birth rights from Bermudians by the British Government in 1968 and 1971, and the change of their citizenship in 1983, actually violated the rights granted them by Royal Charters at the founding of the colony. Bermuda (fully The Somers Isles or Islands of Bermuda) had been settled by the London Company (which had been in occupation of the archipelago since the 1609 wreck of the Sea Venture) in 1612, when it received its Third Royal Charter from King James I, amending the boundaries of the First Colony of Virginia far enough across the Atlantic to include Bermuda.