Since 2021, the British government has offered the British National (Overseas) visa scheme to residents of Hong Kong. The arrangement, which allows residents of the city who are holders of or eligible for the BN(O) passport to live in Britain, was framed as the government’s “obligation” to Hong Kong residents following the implementation of the National Security Law for Hong Kong amid the violent social unrest that swept the city in 2019-20. According to government statistics, around 150,000 people had arrived in Britain from Hong Kong by mid-2024 out of 169,000 visa grants under the BN(O) visa plan — a number lower than what was anticipated. Since that time, applications have fallen significantly.
In running this scheme, the British government and politicians have a starry-eyed view of Hong Kong residents, wearing nostalgic tinted glasses regarding their legacy in the city, depicting them as the archetype of the “good migrant” who is hardworking, law-abiding and contributes to society — a view which is idealistic and overlooks human nature. Likewise, many of the Hong Kong residents who have chosen to leave have a romanticized view of Britain longing for the “better days” of imperial nostalgia while having a clear-cut prejudice against China. They went to Britain with the assumption it would be some sort of liberal wonderland better than the so-called “dystopia” that the mainstream media now depicts Hong Kong as being.
Except, it has not quite worked out like that. As the saying goes, “The grass is always greener on the other side”, and it is my observation, as well as the focus of numerous reports, that the Hong Kong residents who have migrated to Britain have effectively signed up for a second-class lifestyle, with many of them struggling psychologically and economically. After all, as a British person myself, I am conscious of the reality that my country has been comprehensively going backward for the past 14 years, suffering from a stagnant economy, shrinking incomes, surging levels of inflation and in the cost of living, and growing political and societal unrest.
Because of such a situation in the United Kingdom, as well as the fact that many of the migrants are young, BN(O) migrants are quickly finding themselves washed up in a country that has limited opportunities and are struggling economically. For example, BN(O) Hong Kong immigrants, treated as “international students” by British universities, are charged full international fees and are not entitled to student loans, making education very expensive for them. Second, the social uprooting of their lives, the change of the environment and economic system, also means they limit their career opportunities and advancement, and as reported, must get by on more-meager jobs. For example, one BN(O) Hong Kong immigrant I met is simply getting by as an online Cantonese tutor; another is testing computer games; while another is blogging about soccer.
Thus, the pattern is they tend to be struggling economically and gravitate toward freelance, or unstable, work. They have placed themselves at the bottom of the economic pyramid in Britain, and I have seen firsthand how these struggles, as well as the psychological impact of isolation, are having a negative impact. Recently, while working on a project in the UK, I regretfully made the wrong decision to hire three BN(O)-tier Hong Kong immigrants on a film project, all of whom were young people in their 20s. Having lived in Hong Kong, greatly admiring the city’s culture, and of course still having that “starry eyed” positive bias of the city as a British man, I was too trusting of their supposed talents and credentials.
All three of these people managed to let me down and proved highly untrustworthy, opportunistic and unscrupulous. I gained the impression from it that not only were they seemingly fueled by desperation and money, but moreover, the BN(O)-tier Hong Kong immigrants want all the “benefits” from living in Britain but none of the obligations, and even hold the locals with contempt. This made me realize that their presence in the UK is driven by little more than prejudice against China, and moreover, the Hong Kong residents who are leaving the city tend to be young people who are blinded with this mindset of self-entitlement and had little prospects at home to begin with.
It goes without saying that no Hong Kong resident in their right mind who has a lucrative career and rooted family would dump it all to become a second-class citizen in a stagnant Britain and get by on bit-part jobs. To this end, these people are vastly different than the older generation of Hong Kong-born Chinese who came here in previous decades, worked relentlessly hard and invested everything in their own children’s education.
While I continue to have a significantly positive view of Hong Kong people’s sense of work ethic and organization, I realize now that view does not apply to everyone. Those who now migrate to Britain are actively disadvantaging themselves, and there is nothing I have seen in the life of BN(O)’ers, or to the behavior it leads to, that suggests it is a good idea to follow suit. I’m a British man; our country is not a utopia, and don’t let ideology blind you into thinking it is.
The author is a British political and international-relations analyst.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
