If the British Labour government wants the world to disbelieve the notion that it is a lackey of the Chinese Communist Party, it should stop doing things that give this impression. The latest is an email to a prodemocracy activist, Chloe Cheung (shown above), who had fled to Britain from Hong Kong, demanding information about her “self-declared criminality.” While ignoring information already in hand about Cheung’s circumstances.
The “crime” would be that of speaking out against tyranny and in favor of freedom and democracy (The Telegraph, July 5, 2026).
Chloe Cheung, 21, who has a £100,000 bounty on her head after taking part in pro-democracy protests in 2019, applied for indefinite leave to remain in the UK in May.
An email sent to Ms Cheung by the Home Office asked for documentation of any “rehabilitation, penalty, sentence or related activity” as well as “court transcriptions or other legal documents…regarding the case, and information about the circumstances of the offence”.
The Government has been accused of “legitimising the persecution of innocent Hong Kongers” in its treatment of Ms Cheung, who left Hong Kong and moved to Britain with her family in 2020.
She had been the youngest of 19 activists accused of breaching the national security law introduced by Beijing to put down pro-democracy protests in the former British colony.
Ms Cheung told The Telegraph she was angry that she had been treated as a criminal for her pro-democracy campaigning.
She said: “Had any effort been made to understand my case or read the documents I have already submitted, officials would have immediately known that I am a victim of transnational repression. Instead, I was asked to prove, yet again, that I am the victim rather than the criminal.”
Campaigners demanded last week that Ms Cheung’s application be fast-tracked and approved, in a letter to the Home Office organised by the Interparliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) and Lord Alton.
The letter, seen by The Telegraph, stated: “It beggars belief that someone subject to a bounty from the Hong Kong authorities would be asked to explain their offence, as if the UK Government believes that such naked political persecution would carry a shred of credibility.”
The happy ending is that less than a day after submission of the letter, the UK government approved Cheung’s application.
Let’s hope that the thunderingly obtuse Home Office email is the result only of the blundering of one ignorant clerk who never heard of the Chinese Communist Party, Hong Kong, the mass protests against Beijing in 2019, how the CCP routinely treats opposition, etc.; someone who will soon be disabused of the notion that “bounty on head = criminal.” To be on the safe side, though, let the Home Secretary send an IPAC-vetted memorandum to all persons in the government instructing them on these points and let anyone who fails to pass a quiz on this memo be sacked.
