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Hong Kong forbidden a British deputy to enter Chinese territory, adding uncertainty to the bonds of British China as well as the Labor government seeks to intensify bilateral economic relations.
Wera Hobhouse, a liberal deputy for democrats for Bath and member of the Transfrontalian Alliance in China (IPAC), said that she had been refused upon her arrival in Hong Kong this week without specific reasons provided by the authorities.
The incident occurs while the Labor government seeks to forge closer links with China. British Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Foreign Minister David Lammy went to Beijing in recent months and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was in London in February. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is expected to visit China this year.
The ejection of Hobhouse “seems to be linked to his criticisms of the Beijing Human Rights file” and perhaps his membership in the IPAC, the alliance said in a statement on Sunday.
“The fact that the Hong Kong authorities feel capable of denying entry to an exercise parliamentarian while welcoming British ministers simultaneously is an insult to parliament,” said the IPAC, an international intermediate group created in 2020 and has focused on human rights issues in China.
Hobhouse flew to Hong Kong with her husband on Thursday to see their newborn grandson, but she was detained at Security airport and wondered before being flight to the United Kingdom a few hours later, Hobhouse told Sunday Times, who reported the news for the first time.
“The authorities did not give me any explanation of this cruel and overwhelming blow,” wrote Hobhouse later on the Bluesky social media platform, adding that she was thinking that she was the “first deputy to refuse entry to her arrival in Hong Kong since 1997”, the year when the United Kingdom has returned the territory to China.
“I hope that the Minister of Foreign Affairs will recognize that it is an insult to all parliamentarians and will seek answers to the Chinese ambassador,” she wrote.
Her husband, a businessman, was authorized to enter but decided to return to the United Kingdom with her, according to Times.
“We are going to raise him urgently with the authorities of Hong Kong and Beijing to demand an explanation,” said the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lammy, according to the BBC.
The British Consulate General of Hong Kong said they were “aware” of the denial of Hobhouse and “increased this urgently with the Hong Kong authorities”.
Lib Dem chief Sir Ed Davey described the refusal of “heartless heart” entry.
“The Chinese authorities have diverted her-just because she is a British MP … totally unacceptable,” he wrote on the X social media platform.
In 2014, in the midst of pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong, the British deputies of a committee carrying out an investigation into the relations of the United Kingdom with the city were informed by China that they would be “refused entry” if they were traveling there, affirming that Beijing had warned them that the proposed delegation would serve as support for “illegal activity” demonstrators.
The academics and journalists in recent years have been denied entry into Chinese territory.
The Hong Kong Immigration Service and the China Embassy in the United Kingdom did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
Beijing repressed dissent to Hong Kong after pro-democracy demonstrations in 2019, in particular by imposing a law of national security.
In October, the ministry said that it had compiled a “surveillance list” of people not welcomed considered as a risk for the social order or national security of the territory.
Hong Kong refused entry to more than 23,000 people in the first nine months of last year, a majority of them said the “suspect” reasons for entry.
