UK: Betrayal by consensus
01 September 1995
The Tory government and Labour opposition united to dismiss out of hand Hong Kong governor Chris Patten's call for the colony's 3 million British Dependent Territories Citizens to be given the right of abode in the UK after Hong Kong is handed back to the Chinese government in 1997. Patten indicated on a radio programme that no one expected a mass exodus to the UK, but that the colony's British subjects needed an insurance policy against a Chinese crackdown. The only politician to endorse his remarks was Paddy Ashdown, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, who said that such a move was "the single act Britain could take that would best ensure the survival of democracy" in Hong Kong. While Michael Howard's knee-jerk response was entirely predictable, Labour's eager agreement marked a hardening of attitudes since 1990, when the future of Hong Kong's British citizens was last discussed.
The three million used to be citizens of the UK and colonies, which gave them the right to live in the UK until the 1971 Immigration Act restricted that right to citizens with a parental or grandparental connection with the UK (they were then called "patrials"). The 1981 British Nationality Act revised citizenship in line with rights of entry, turning the UK and colonies citizens into Dependent Territories citizens, with rights of entry to Hong Kong but not to Britain. Neil Kinnock vowed to repeal both Acts - 1971 and 1981 - when Labour won an election. The British Nationality (Hong Kong) Act 1990 made provision for 50,000 of the most "valuable" Hong Kong citizens to become full citizens and take up residence in the UK, with their families. Opposition to the Bill took the form of an unholy alliance between the right wing of the Tory party, led by Norman Tebbit, who denounced it as too generous, and Labour, who said it was a betrayal of Hong Kong's people. Even in 1990 Labour would not commit itself to returning full residence rights to all the three million, and the only unequivocal commitment given by the party's home affairs spokesman Roy Hattersley, was to give the right of abode to the colony's 12,000 Indians. Now, even that limited commitment seems to have been forgotten. The Independent commented in an editorial that "few actions in the last 50 years have become this country so poorly as our treatment of the people of Hong Kong ... The country has washed its hands of three million colonial subjects for fear of what might happen to British politics if there were to be a new, large-scale immigration."
Observer 24.9.95; Independent 25.9.95.