Steerpike Steerpike

Hong Kong lawmaker’s jibe at Britain backfires

ANTHONY WALLACE/AFP via Getty Images

China’s lamentably poor ‘wolf warriors’ have given Mr S many laughs in recent months. Diplomats and functionaries within President Xi’s regime are seeking to use Twitter to act as propaganda outriders by amplifying the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s belligerent messages to the outside world – a task at which they currently fail miserably.

It’s not just mainland apparatchiks who try to prove their fealty to the CCP via shrill posts on social media. In Hong Kong, craven legislators have only been too keen to do the bidding of Beijing and jump on the Twitter band wagon. One such example was provided this week by Regina Ip, chair of the pro-Beijing New People’s Party (NPP).

Ip has been known to covet the post of Hong Kong Chief Executive throughout her entire political life. Best known for her staunch support of the CCP, lowlights in a chequered career include racist comments about Filipino maids and refusing to burn her beloved Burberry scarfs – despite backing a boycott of the firm for its criticism of atrocities in Xinjiang.

First elected as a Legislative Councillor in 2008, she has proved to be a willing collaborator in the erosion, emasculation and abolition of democracy in the city-state. This perhaps should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed Ip’s career; the last time free and fair District Council elections were held, the NPP was comprehensively rejected and lost all of its seats.

Ip spent the bulk of her life under British rule – including working for the then colonial government as a low-level bureaucrat– but now seems to have developed something of a loathing for the UK. On Saturday she launched an attack on those Hong Kong nationals who have chosen to take up the Foreign Office’s offer of a British National Overseas visa to come and live here in Britain.

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Steerpike
Written by
Steerpike

Steerpike is The Spectator's gossip columnist, serving up the latest tittle tattle from Westminster and beyond. Email tips to steerpike@spectator.co.uk or message @MrSteerpike

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