Saturday, April 12, 2025

Wera Hobhouse MP refused entry to Hong Kong to visit grandson

From the Mail:

A Liberal Democrat MP has been refused entry to Hong Kong to visit her newborn grandson.

Wera Hobhouse, 65, flew to the region, which was a British territory until 1997, on Thursday.

However she was held at airport security and questioned before being put on the first flight home five hours later.

Chinese officers confiscated her passport, and the MP for Bath was asked about her job and the purpose of her visit.

She also had her luggage searched and stabbed and was then taken to a boarding gate by four immigration officers.

 And here is Ed Davey's comment on Bluesky (the Sunday Times story is behind its paywall):

Two further thoughts.

It's only a week since two Labour MPs were barred from entering Israel. Once authoritarian governments see other governments getting away with this behaviour, they are likely to try it themselves. It just shows how wrong Kemi Badenoch was to support the Israeli government: soon it will be a Conservative MP who is affected.

In 2020 Ryan Coetzee, mastermind of the Liberal Democrats' 2015 general election campaign and the Remain effort in the EU referendum, was given a £5m budget to promote the Hong Kong government as part of his work for a PR firm.

4 comments:

  1. (… luggage searched and “stabbed”?)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If customs officers suspect that luggage might have a secret compartment, it’s not unusual for them to run something sharp through it.

      Delete
  2. Wow, thanks! I had thought it was a typo.

    ReplyDelete