London’s calling: What should Hongkongers and Brits expect as the BNO migration scheme expands?
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Last week, the British government announced that it would be expanding its British National Overseas (BNO) visa scheme for Hong Kong to include adults born after 1997, starting from the end of November. This means that Hong Kong citizens born after 1997 will be able to apply for permanent residency in the United Kingdom, as long as one of their parents holds a BNO passport.
The original BNO visa scheme started in January 2021, allowing BNO passport holders and their dependents — spouses and children — to remain in the UK for up to five years, after which they could apply for permanent residency and later citizenship. Up until recently, however, dependents born after 1997 were unable to apply independently for the visa. Last week’s announcement was good news for young people in Hong Kong, many of whom have long wanted to start a new life in the UK—a country where freedom of speech and assembly is respected, and where citizens are free from the shadow of authoritarianism.
But like most migration plans the BNO scheme is part of a myriad of socio-political complications.
It might be worth explaining why the scheme was first enacted: Hong Kong was handed over from Britain to Beijing in 1997, and many adults born before that year would have applied for a BNO passport due to the region’s status as a former British colony.
Since the handover Hong Kong’s autonomy has dwindled under Chinese governance; this erosion has only accelerated since the implementation of China’s National Security Law in June 2020, which criminalised all activities deemed by Beijing to be acts of subversion. The implementation of the visa scheme was a response to this new law, allowing individuals in Hong Kong to escape the wave of political persecution that would follow. With over 3000 individuals already arrested for taking part in Hong Kong’s 2019 protests, it’s no surprise that most people are eager to leave.
What this means for Hongkongers and British citizens
According to Oxford’s Migration Observatory, the UK was already the top destination of choice for Hong Kong migrants before the expansion of the scheme. With this new announcement, the flow of Hong Kongers into the UK will most likely increase further still, creating a growing diaspora of Hongkongers in the country.
So far, 140,000 workers have already left the city. The British government estimates that the number of Hongkongers coming to the UK in the next five years could reach 350,000. A substantial 60% of these potential migrants are full-time workers, which is good news for the British economy: during a time of low unemployment and high job vacancies, especially in financial services, many employers would benefit from a boost in the working population.
But all of this coincides with the UK’s worst cost-of-living crisis in half a century. Whether or not the increasing demands for housing, necessities, and education could lead to competition, and whether this might lead to a souring of relationships between migrants and locals, remains a pressing question.
The massive elephant in the room, of course, is Sino-British relations.
Beijing made its disapproval clear from the start of the scheme’s implementation, announcing on 29 January 2021 that it would no longer recognise the BNO passport. To no one’s surprise, Beijing hasn’t responded positively to the expansion of the scheme either, deeming it a gross interference with internal affairs and a breach of ‘basic principles of international relations’. To add insult to injury, news of the scheme was publicly announced just as British police launched an investigation into the assault of a Hong Kong protester who was dragged into the Manchester Chinese consulate and beaten up by an unidentified Chinese man on October 17. The Chinese government has not shown contrition towards this incident, and a Chinese diplomat stated on October 28 that siding with Hong Kong would result in ‘disaster’ for Britain.
Coupled with other recent global events, the ties between the two countries are likely to grow more tenuous still. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has deemed China the ‘greatest threat to the UK’, and with good reason: it was revealed on 18 October that China has recruited around thirty former RAF pilots to help train its own personnel. Hong Kong isn’t the only island on the South China Sea attracting global attention either. Taiwan has long been under threat of Chinese control and Beijing has warned the UK that ‘foreign interference’ in its affairs with Taiwan could result in dire consequences. Or, in other words, tensions are ratcheting up.
For many Hongkongers, though, the key issue at hand is the grim prospects that they face back at home. A city where protest scenes are excluded from film festivals and active protest may be met with a life sentence in prison is one where few citizens can envision a safe, happy future. Migration is never an easy topic, but for many young people the visa scheme is the only way out of a bleak situation. Or at least I’ll be telling myself that when I start my application this month.