On Oct 23, the United Kingdom issued its 57th report on Hong Kong since its 1997 reunification, covering the period from Jan 1 to June 30.

If anybody imagined that the replacement of David Lammy by Yvette Cooper as foreign secretary last month would herald greater honesty and less propaganda, they will be sorely disappointed. The familiar distortions are all still there, along with the usual calumnies. Although Lammy’s fingerprints are all over the report, Cooper cannot escape her fair share of responsibility for its rank hypocrisy.

As a seasoned politician, Cooper should know it is invariably risky for “the pot to call the kettle black”. Yet this is precisely what she has done, and she has inevitably been caught out.

It beggars belief, for example, that she has sought to sensationalize the exclusion from Hong Kong earlier this year of Wera Hobhouse, a Liberal Democrat parliamentarian (and a member of the rabid Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, which has sought to harm China through punitive sanctions). Although Cooper claimed Hobhouse’s exclusion “damages Hong Kong’s reputation”, she should have looked in the mirror first.

The UK regularly excludes people from entering the country if it believes their presence is “non-conducive to the public good”, and there is no basis for claiming that Hong Kong is not also entitled to do the same.

In April, for example, the eminent French theorist and writer Renaud Camus was barred from entering Britain, where he had been invited to discuss the impact of mass immigration in Europe.

In June, the UK also excluded a South African parliamentarian, Julius Malema, followed by two Israeli government ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich (a move described by the United States as a “shocking decision”).

Although, given the UK’s own record, it is manifestly hypocritical that Cooper should presume to lecture Hong Kong on border control, it gets worse.

Her report declared that basic rights, including freedom of speech and of the press, were being “negatively impacted” by the city’s national security legislation. Although that legislation saved Hong Kong’s bacon after the 2019 insurrection broke out, she does not scruple over maligning it — demonstrating, if nothing else, the degree of British backing for those who tried to wreck the “one country, two systems” framework (the UK later provided them with safe haven after they fled the scene of their crimes).

No less shameful is the UK’s own dismal human rights record, which even the US, its closest ally, has felt constrained to call out.

In February, for example, the US vice-president, JD Vance, said the UK had seen “a backslide in conscience rights”, with the “civil liberties of religious Britons, in particular”, being threatened. He was, unsurprisingly, incensed by the prosecution of a former British soldier, Adam Smith-Connor, whose only “crime” was to pray silently for three minutes for his unborn son, lost to abortion, in the vicinity of an abortion facility.

Moreover, in August, when the US State Department issued its annual report, it also denounced the UK’s record. It said the human rights situation had “worsened” over the past year (under the government in which Cooper serves). It pointed to “specific areas of concern”, including the restrictions on political speech.

Cooper’s report is not worth the paper it is written on. Although, like earlier such reports, it is biased and inaccurate, it is the hypocrisy that objective observers will find most nauseating this time

This was undoubtedly levelled at Cooper, who, in her previous role of home secretary, ruthlessly clamped down on freedom of expression. On her watch, for example, nearly 500 people were arrested over the summer for peacefully protesting against the genocide in Gaza. (The legality of her draconian anti-protest law is now being challenged in the courts.)

As if this were not bad enough, Cooper then turned to the Judiciary, claiming its independence was “threatened” in national security cases (she provided no evidence). This will be news to the judges themselves, who continue to administer justice impartially, without fear or favor. The only threats to the judges come from the US Congress, where there have been moves to sanction them — which Cooper has not even bothered to mention (let alone denounce).

In her eagerness to malign Hong Kong’s national security laws, Cooper has skated over the similarities between the British and Hong Kong models. For example, the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance (2024) bears a marked (and at times uncanny) resemblance to the UK’s National Security Act (2023), which influenced its drafting. Some of the offenses are drawn in similar terms, and both laws have extraterritorial reach.

Although Cooper whines away about “transnational repression” by the Hong Kong authorities, who are seeking the arrest of Hong Kong exiles trying to harm China from the UK, she has no qualms over the UK having similar laws to protect itself from malign actors operating abroad — hypocrisy incarnate.

As always, the report trots out the tired old myth about the prosecution of the former media magnate, Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, being “politically motivated”. Although her predecessor, David Lammy, eagerly peddled this fallacy, he, like Cooper, failed to provide any supporting evidence (even after he was urged to pass his evidence to Lai’s lawyers, who could have used it to defend Lai at trial, he produced nothing).

More fatuous still, Cooper called for Lai’s “immediate release”, which, on two bases, is impossible to fulfill. First, as a convicted fraudster, he is currently serving a five-year, nine-month prison sentence. Second, he is awaiting the verdicts in his national security trial. Although she is not a lawyer, even Cooper should know that, just as in the UK, somebody in Lai’s situation cannot, by law, be “immediately released”.

By any yardstick, therefore, Cooper’s report is not worth the paper it is written on. Although, like earlier such reports, it is biased and inaccurate, it is the hypocrisy that objective observers will find most nauseating this time. Indeed, anyone hoping to understand better the city’s situation will be disappointed by a “politically motivated” report that prioritizes propaganda over truth.

If she has any shame, the least Cooper can do before issuing any further such reports is to put her own house in order.

The author is a senior counsel and law professor, and was previously the director of public prosecutions of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.