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Hong Kong has barred a British member of parliament from entering the Chinese territory, adding uncertainty to UK-China ties just as the Labour government seeks to step up bilateral economic relations.
Wera Hobhouse, a Liberal Democrat MP for Bath and a member of the cross-border Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (Ipac), said she was refused entry upon arrival to Hong Kong this week without specific reasons provided by authorities.
The incident comes as the Labour government seeks to forge closer ties with China. UK chancellor Rachel Reeves and foreign secretary David Lammy have travelled 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 ejection “appears linked to her criticism of Beijing’s human rights record” and possibly her Ipac membership, the alliance said in a statement on Sunday.
“That the Hong Kong authorities felt able to deny entry to a sitting parliamentarian while simultaneously hosting UK Ministers is an insult to Parliament,” said Ipac, a cross-party international group established in 2020 and 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 held at airport security and questioned before being put on a flight back to the UK hours later, Hobhouse told the Sunday Times, which first reported the news.
“Authorities gave me no explanation for this cruel and upsetting blow,” Hobhouse later wrote on social media platform Bluesky, adding that she believed she was the “first MP to be refused entry on arrival to Hong Kong since 1997”, the year when the UK handed the territory back to China.
“I hope the Foreign Secretary will recognise that this is an insult to all parliamentarians and seek answers from the Chinese Ambassador,” she wrote.
Her husband, a businessman, was permitted to enter but decided to return to the UK with her, according to the Times.
“It is deeply concerning to hear that an MP on a personal trip has been refused entry to Hong Kong,” said foreign secretary Lammy. “We will urgently raise this with the authorities in Hong Kong and Beijing to demand an explanation.”
Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey called the entry refusal “heartless”.
“The Chinese authorities turned her away — just because she’s a British MP . . . totally unacceptable,” he wrote on social media platform X.
During Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests in 2014, British MPs on a committee conducting an inquiry into the UK’s relations with the city were told by China they would be “refused entry” if they travelled there, saying Beijing warned them the proposed delegation would be showing support for protesters’ “illegal activity”.
Academics and journalists in recent years have been denied entry into the Chinese territory.
Hong Kong’s immigration department and China’s embassy in the UK did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Beijing has cracked down on dissent in Hong Kong after pro-democracy protests in 2019, including imposing a sweeping national security law.
The immigration department in October said it had compiled a “watch list” of unwelcomed individuals deemed a risk to the territory’s social order or national security.
Hong Kong refused entry to more than 23,000 people in the first nine months of last year, the department said, a majority of them because of “suspicious” reasons for entry.