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Hong Kong has banned British lawmakers from entering China’s territory and added uncertainty to British-China relations in the same way that the labour government seeks to strengthen bilateral economic ties.
Wera Hobhouse, a liberal Democrat in Bath and a member of China’s Inter-Border Alliance (IPAC), said he was denied entry by authorities when he arrived in Hong Kong without specific reasons.
This incident comes as the labor government is trying to develop close ties with China. British Prime Minister Rachel Reeves and Foreign Secretary David Lamy have traveled to Beijing in recent months, while Chinese Wang Yi was in London in February. Prime Minister Kiel is scheduled to visit China this year.
Hobhouse’s emissions “appear to be linked to her criticism of Beijing’s human rights records,” perhaps her IPAC membership, the Alliance, said in a statement Sunday.
“The Hong Kong authorities felt that they could host British ministers at the same time and deny entry into lawmakers as well as being an insult to Parliament,” said IPAC, an international group founded in 2020 and focused on Chinese human rights issues.
Hobhouse flew to Hong Kong with her husband on Thursday to meet her newborn grandson, but she was questioned before a flight back to the UK several hours later, Hobhouse told the Sunday Times, which first reported the news.
“The authorities did not explain this cruel and upsetting blow,” Hobhouse wrote on social media platform Bruski, who believed she was “the first MP denied on arrival in Hong Kong since 1997.”
“I hope that the Foreign Secretary recognizes this as a shaming for all lawmakers and asks for answers from the Chinese ambassador,” she wrote.
Her husband, a businessman, was allowed to enter, but according to the Times, he decided to return to the UK with her.
“I am deeply concerned to hear that private travel lawmakers have been denied entry to Hong Kong,” Foreign Secretary Ramie said. “We will urgently raise this with Hong Kong and Beijing authorities to request an explanation.”
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey called the refusal of an entry “heartless.”
“The Chinese authorities have driven her away. Just because she’s a British lawmaker, it’s completely unacceptable,” he wrote on social media platform X.
During the 2014 Hong Kong democratic protest, British lawmakers on the committee that investigated their ties with the UK said that if they travel there, they would be “rejected entry,” and Beijing warned that the proposed mandate would show support for the protesters’ “illegal conduct.”
Scholars and journalists in recent years have been denied entry into China’s territory.
Hong Kong’s Immigration Bureau and the UK’s Chinese Embassy did not respond to requests for comment.
Beijing cracked down on dissent in Hong Kong after the 2019 democratic protests.
The Immigration Bureau in October said it had compiled a “watchlist” of unwelcome individuals, considered a risk to the social order or national security of the territories.
Hong Kong said it had refused to enter more than 23,000 people in the first nine months of last year.
