HK people are more engaging and proactive than ever before  

I believe not many members in the party know that there is a HK subgroup in Chinese Liberal Democrats.

One of our key objectives is to help HK people integrate into the UK. And earlier this month in May, we were invited by Diversity Resource International (DRI), a non-profit-making Social Enterprise that supports ethnically diverse and migrant communities, as speakers of a workshop. This is in order to let HK people have a basic understanding of the UK political landscape and system before voting. It was a very meaningful event, and even more meaningful to me was seeing HK people getting more engaged and proactive than before.

HK people have an image, I am not sure since when, that they are shy and quite detached from the local community, just focusing on their jobs and earning money. But happily, it is changing, one of the reasons is the impact of HK BNO holders.

For example, the feedback from the workshop were encouraging, and majority of them said "I will go to vote". I don't have a solid figure, however, from what I heard, most of the HK BNO holders did vote in the local elections. For some reason, the last generations of HK Chinese who came to the UK were relatively passive in terms of social engagement. After they saw the new HK BNO comers active and vocal, the last generations of HK Chinese also feel empowered and gained the momentum to be more participating.

Once in a lunch, a local friend said there are so many Chinese people now (regardless from HK or other countries/cities) in the UK, some of the HK people have been here over decades, but you rarely see a Chinese in the parliament, nor in the cabinet. Yes, there are only two MPs of Chinese descent at the moment, and no single one in London Assembly. It showed that we were not doing well enough in comparison to other ethnic groups. Fortunately, the good news is Chinese LibDems had a few members elected as councillors in the recent local elections, namely, Cllrs Ying Perrett and Calvin Chong (both of whom are BNO Visa holders) and Cllr Marguerita Morton (originally from Macau). We also have a PPC Victoria Collins in Harpenden and Berkamsted who is of mixed Chinese heritage.

The other objective of HK subgroup is to bridge the communication gap between local communities and different ethnic groups with the HK people, and not just supporting HK people. I believe cultural exchange is the only way to break the wall of misunderstanding; there are still many people think that all Chinese are spies. In particular, the recent hot news is about immigration: there were 1.1 million people who migrated into the UK in the year ending June 2022, 76,000 of whom were from Hong Kong. It is the time for Hong Kong people to step forward. In the meantime, I also invite the people from different ethnic groups to interact with us more frequently.

The positive election results of 4 May were a good sign that we are on the right path, even though there may be some way to go.

Editor: Any local party or Constituency that has a large population of HK BNO migrants and would like resources and help in reaching out to them, please feel free to contact Kevin and the HK subgroup via hello@chineselibdems.org.uk