In his foreword to the White Paper, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs had stated that “the basis for our partnership must be self-determination”, and had given to understand that self-determination presupposed a choice: independence or conforming to the will of the United Kingdom, and the population of the Territory had thought it had no other options.
Dans son avant-propos au Livre blanc, le Secrétaire d'État aux affaires étrangères et au Commonwealth dit que la base du partenariat doit être l'autodétermination et laisse entendre que celle-ci suppose un choix : l'indépendance ou l'alignement sur la volonté du Royaume-Uni. La population du territoire n'a pas pensé avoir d'autre alternative.