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Hong Kong has forbidden a British member of Parliament from entering Chinese territory, adding uncertainty to the UK ties, just as the Labor Government seeks to increase bilateral economic relations.
Were Hobhouse, a MP of Liberal Democratic Bath and a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Cross-border Alliance in China (IPAC), said she was rejected to enter Hong Kong this week without specific reason given by the authorities.
The incident comes as the work government seeks to establish closer links with China. UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Foreign Secretary David Lammy traveled 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.
Hobhouse’s extraction “seems to be related to her criticism of the Beijing Human Rights Record” and perhaps its IPAC membership, the Alliance said in a statement Sunday.
“That Hong Kong’s authorities felt capable of denying entry into a sedentary parliamentary while at the same time the leader of the United Kingdom is an insult to parliament,” said IPAC, an international group group founded in 2020 and focused on human rights issues in China.
Hobhouse flew in Hong Kong with her husband on Thursday to see their newborn nephew, but she was held in the airport’s security and was questioned before entering a UK flight a few hours later, Hobhouse told the Sunday Times, who first reported the news.
“Authorities gave me no explanation for this cruel and disturbing blow,” Hobhouse later wrote on the Bluesky social media platform, adding that she believed she was “the first MP to refuse to arrive in Hong Kong since 1997, the year when the United Kingdom gave the territory back to China.
“I hope the Foreign Secretary will admit that this is an insult to all parliamentarians and seek responses from the Chinese ambassador,” she wrote.
Her husband, a businessman, was allowed to enter, but decided to return to the United Kingdom, according to Times.
“Deep to hear that an MP on a personal trip has been rejected to enter Hong Kong,” said Foreign Secretary Lammy. “We will raise this with the authorities in Hong Kong and Beijing to seek an explanation.”
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey called the rejection of “heartless” entry.
“The Chinese authorities removed it – just because it is a British MP. It is completely unacceptable,” he wrote on the social media platform X.
During the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2014, British MPs in a committee conducting an investigation into the UK relations with the city was told by China that they would “refuse entry” if they traveled there, saying that Beijing warned that the proposed delegation would show support for “illegal activity”.
Academics and journalists have been denied entering Chinese territory in recent years.
The Hong Kong immigration department and the China Embassy in the UK did not respond to requests for comment.
Beijing has hit the Hong Kong opposition after the 2019 pro-democracy protests, including the imposition of a comprehensive national security law.
The immigration department in October said he had compiled a “observation list” of unwanted individuals, considered a risk to the social order of territory or national security.
Hong Kong refused to enter more than 23,000 people in the first nine months of last year, the department said, most of them because of the “suspicious” reasons of the entrance.
