Britain may offer 'path to citizenship' for nearly 3 million in Hong Kong

Reuters ^ | May 29, 2020 / 3:04 PM | Reporting by William James, editing by Andy Bruce

[Zhang Fei]

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain is prepared to offer extended visa rights and a pathway to citizenship for almost 3 million Hong Kong residents in response to China’s push to impose national security legislation in the former British colony.

China’s parliament has approved a decision to go forward with national security legislation for Hong Kong that democracy activists, diplomats and some in the business world fear will jeopardise its semi-autonomous status and its role as a global financial hub.

Britain, the United States, Australia, Canada and the EU have all sharply criticised the move.

Foreign minister Dominic Raab said on Thursday that if Beijing went ahead, Britain would extend the rights of 350,000 ‘British National Overseas’ passport holders.

On Friday the interior ministry said that this policy would apply to all BNOs currently in Hong Kong - a much larger group of around 2.9 million people according to British government figures.

[Zhang Fei]

Seems like a pretty big number, if true. Given how right-wing Hong Kong is on economic issues, this could cement Tory dominance for a while when these people become eligible for citizenship, with near vote majorities becoming a possibility, up from the recent ~44% number. Laborites, who are open borders types for electoral and ideological reasons, will probably be unhappy if this goes through. Still, it's unclear if the rank and file Tory voter will be happy about this sudden influx of culturally and physically alien foreigners.

[Paladin2]

Vancouver, B.C. should do the same.

[magna carta]

It’ll be great if they start deporting the Saracens

[UnwashedPeasant]

We should deport all our Chicoms, including students and anchor babies (birth tourism), and consider merit-based import of HK people.

[stuckincali]

leave them there to fester the revolution

[HChampagne]

Shouldn’t The USA get in on this?

[KC_Lion]

[deadrock]

You mean Vankong. That's what the locals call it.

What separates China and India? The Frazer river.

[meyer]

Wasn’t Hong Kong a British colony anyway? Then they should offer up a path.

[sheehan]

All ChiCom visas should be revoked NOW.

[softengine]

Yes, no more importation of non-Europeans into European nations. No more. Our altruism is being played upon. We must stop falling for it. With each round of importation, OUR culture gets diluted.

[Empire_of_Liberty]

Shouldn’t The USA get in on this?

---

I think we’ll have our hands full with Taiwan.

[Cobra64]

Yup. Get rid of the sneaky bastards who steal our R&D, and give it to the Chinese Communist bastards who are determined to take over our country.

[Jeff Chandler]

Now THOSE are the kind of refugees they should be taking in.

[stuckincali]

national and cultural suicide we’re not too far behind you look at Dearbornistan and New Somalia (Minneapolis) 4 islamic jihad supporters in congress.

[Cobra64]

Get in on what? More immigrants? We have 40,000,000 too many as it is. If your house were on fire, would you pour gasoline on it?

[Cobra64]

Yup.

[max americana]

Im from Vancouver. Why do you think we called it Hongcouver since the 90’s?

[max americana]

I’m more keeping it as a US territory like PR. But we have to pick between Taiwan and HK. Our military has at least a thousand war strategies in defending Taiwan.

[boycott]

I would trade muslims and people from 3rd world nations any and every day.

They’re industrious, smart, and hard workers. They’re a net plus instead of a negative to any society.