The Royal Gazette has learned.

But the long-awaited White Paper on the Overseas Territories -- expected to be unveiled this month -- will now not be published until well into the New Year.

UK Parliamentary insiders, however, said yesterday that the Foreign Office was now thrashing out final details with the Home Office, responsible for immigration in Britain.

But one added that the UK was "certain'' to grant full rights to the fewer-than-200,000 citizens of the remaining colonies.

Another added: "There was a bit of a dispute about whether there should be reciprocal rights -- but that is a non-starter.'' A spokeswoman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said yesterday: "We don't have a publication date at this time.

"It is scheduled for early in the Parliamentary session and that was just opened by the Queen at the end of November.'' But she added that this month appeared to be ruled out for MPs to see the details of the UK Labour Party's proposals.

She said: "I have to say that's unlikely -- but we're still looking at early in the Parliamentary session.'' The spokeswoman added that it was now hoped to deal with the White Paper before Easter -- but that it may be the summer before it is finally issued.

Foreign Secretary Robin Cook announced last year that he planned a major rewrite of relations between the UK and its colonies.

It had been hoped to publish the White Paper in the summer -- but now it looks like next year before details are revealed.

The news came as an English-based Kenyan Asian woman won permission to take her case to be treated as a European Union citizen with full rights to live and work in Britain to the European Court of Justice.

Manjit Kaur, 49, who lives in Birmingham, holds a British National Overseas passport -- not the same as the Bermuda British Dependent Territories Citizens' passport.

Mrs. Kaur's passport is believed to have been issued to citizens of former British colonies where the independent state refused passports to some of its residents.

She challenged a UK Home Office ruling in January last year that she had no right to live in Britain.

But last week the English High Court ruled that she could ask the European Court to rule that -- under European Union law -- she is an EU national entitled to right of abode.

Mr. Justice Lightman said that the case involved issues of "fundamental importance and raises question of fundamental rights''.

Britain to offer passports Mrs. Kaur's lawyer, Peter Duffy QC, told the court: "The reference to the European Court will clarify the rights of British overseas citizens and whether those rights were limited by declarations made by the UK Government -- or whether, as we say, those declarations were legally ineffective because they do not constitute EC Treaty amendments agreed to and ratified by all member states.'' It is not known if a successful appeal to Europe will open the door for Dependent Territories Citizens.

But a ruling in favour of Mrs. Kaur could be used to bolster a case for full British citizenship for Dependent Territories Citizens, who have much closer links to Britain than countries like Kenya.

Bermudians -- and other citizens of the dozen or so Dependent Territories -- were deprived of full British rights in the early 1960s and by the British Nationalities Act 1981, passed to block millions of Hong Kong Chinese from fleeing the prospect of Communist rule and settling in Britain.