This blog posting represents the views of the author, David Fosberry. Those opinions may change over time. They do not constitute an expert legal or financial opinion.

If you have comments on this blog posting, please email me .

The Opinion Blog is organised by threads, so each post is identified by a thread number ("Major" index) and a post number ("Minor" index). If you want to view the index of blogs, click here to download it as an Excel spreadsheet.

Click here to see the whole Opinion Blog.

To view, save, share or refer to a particular blog post, use the link in that post (below/right, where it says "Show only this post").

UK does the right thing for Hong Kong residents, 33 years late!

Posted on 29th January 2021

Show only this post
Show all posts in this thread (politics).

This report, and this report, on the BBC, are about the new rules for holders of a UK BNO visa, entitling them to live in the UK. The new rules take effect from the 31st of January 2021.

The UK government are very proud of themselves for doing this. It is only 33 years too late!

Hong Kong was returned to the control of China (when Britain's lease expired) in July 1997. Hong Kong residents used to be entitled to a full British passport, but the UK government were worried about a huge influx of immigrants, and removed that right well before the handover, and introduced the BNO (British National Overseas) passport (which could only be applied for before the handover of Hong Kong), which gave holders no right of residence in the UK.

At the time, I was disgusted with the the UK government: one of the reasons that I cut most of my ties with Britain when I left the country in 1990.

Finally they have redressed the matter, at least partly. As always, too little, too late. I am sure that the reason for the change has nothing to do with human rights or the protection of freedoms; if they feel those are valid reasons, they would have not created the injustice in the first place in 1997.