The last British governor of Hong Kong before it was turned over to the Chinese Communist Party, Chris Patten, is sounding the alarm about the fate of a UK road to citizenship for Hongkongers.
In commentary for The Telegraph, Patten recalls that after China imposed the repressive National Security Law on Hong Kong in 2020, the UK government introduced a plan to let Hongkongers with British National (Overseas) or BNO passports “gain settled status after five years, plus citizenship a year later” (January 31, 2026).
Unfortunately, though, the BNO plan “has been caught up in the Home Office’s attempts to tighten the requirements for new migrants to gain settled status.” Expectations are being upended.
The Home Office is proposing new eligibility requirements for settled status, a proposal that it calls “earned settlement”. These new requirements—to demonstrate annual earnings of at least £12,570 for three years and pass CEFR B2 or “upper intermediate” English test—are designed to show that migrants are able to contribute economically and integrate culturally.
On the face of it, these requirements are eminently reasonable—indeed, many might think them not tough enough. However, for many BNO families, they are a tripwire introduced just as they are about to apply for settled status.
Many BNOs came to the UK with sizeable assets from the sale of property in Hong Kong and private savings from their white-collar careers. With this financial cushion, many BNO mothers—and some fathers—have chosen to care full-time for their children, rather than go out to work.
Meanwhile, many older BNOs opted to take early retirement—understandably preferring to live off their savings to competing for work as over-50s in an unfamiliar job market.
Under the original rules, these were sensible decisions….
What makes the new earnings requirement so unfair is not that it is draconian, but that it retrospectively changes the rules of the game.
It shouldn’t be too hard for the UK government to recognize the problems that would be caused by imposing the rules retroactively and to stipulate that these new rules would apply only from now on. Or to just agree to leave the rules alone as they apply to Hongkongers.
The Home Office says settlement and British citizenship are privileges, not rights, and migrants to the UK must be prepared to earn that status. As a general principle for migration policy, this is entirely fair. It must, however, seem somewhat insulting to BNOs to be told that they must “earn” their British citizenship.
Who knows better than BNOs the value of British citizenship? Hong Kongers were stripped of their UK citizenship after the handover in 1997. They had no choice in the matter.
So why didn’t the policymakers in the UK think of all this when they were drafting the new immigration rules? And since this isn’t the first time that Hongkongers and their advocates have raised concerns about the proposed rules, why has the Starmer government not already acted to put their minds at ease?
Also see:
South China Morning Post: “Fate of BN(O) scheme for Hongkongers uncertain despite UK’s latest commitment” (November 18, 2025)
Hong Kong Watch: “Hong Kong Watch calls for answers on the future of the BNO scheme” (May 13, 2025)
