Scotland visits China, South Korean state visit, UK-China aviation
A Beijing to Britain briefing
Hello,
In the heady days of early summer 2022 I wrote an analysis arguing that there were votes (and floating MPs) to be won by candidates in the upcoming Conservative leadership race who presented a hard line on and coherent approach to China. Issues around China ended up featuring prominently, with every candidate claiming to be the thoughest (with varying degrees of confidence), and at least one campaign team got in touch to discuss their approach.
I reference this for two reasons. First, if the General Election took place tomorrow, going off current polling, Labour would secure a majority of seats in Parliament with many of them having large majorities or swings. And although commentators and Westminster pundits always underweight foreign policy, China is an issue which cuts across both domestic and foreign policy and demands a proper case to be made to voters. Like those candidates in last year’s election found out, you ignore this at your peril. Second, I’ve been fortunate to have discussions with a small number of people who have been working on one specific question - could Hong Kongers who arrived under the BN(O) scheme swing - or help defend - some of those seats? As covered in a briefing over a month ago, a new Hong Kong group has launched to try and pressure MPs to think about this exact question. And now - finally - we have some data outlining the potential influence Hong Kongers could have over a number of constituencies.
Hong Kong Watch has crunched the numbers and found that 140,000 Hong Kongers could vote in the next 12 months, many of them for the first time. A number of these Hong Kongers are grouped in constituencies with razor-thin majorities. For example, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Housing and Homelessness) Felicity Buchan MP has a majority of 0.3% - 150 votes - and 600+ BN(O)ers in her constituency. Conservative MP for Warrington South Andy Carter has a majority of just 2,000 or so votes and over 2,200 Hong Kongers in his area. Matthew Offord won by around 4,200 votes, with 1600 or so Hong Kongers to factor in at the next election.
For the sake of this exercise, let us pretend that nothing else could cause the above-listed MPs to defend, win or lose their seats, and argue that Hong Kong BN(O)ers are key to either. How should politicians and parties be trying to win these votes? What campaign communications will be effective? How much should they be investing in trying to find out these answers? Similarly, what do Hong Kongers (not a monolithic bloc) want? Better schools? Better access to health care? Their MPs to be talking tough on China? How both groups seek to answer these questions in the coming months will be worth watching closely.
- Sam Hogg, Editor
In this week’s briefing:
Scotland’s delegation in China
South Korean state visit
Government Whitepaper on International Development
New Business Committee report on electric batteries