CONFIDENTIAL & PERSONAL
THE MOOD IN LEGCO
11.
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It is striking how the shift in the community which I have described above has been reflected in the attitudes adopted by the different political groups. Without exception, the leading politicians in the community from Allen Lee to Martin Lee expressing the hope that talks will take place to break the deadlock. Privately, however, many LegCo members are not sanguine about the prospects of success, but all are pressing for an effort to be made.
12. Against this background, there was clearly no way that the introduction of the legislation on 31 March - which would have ended all realistic hopes of talks - could have gone ahead. Had it done so, it is doubtful whether a majority in LegCo would have been willing to consider the bill. It remains to be seen what the position will be in the weeks after the Easter recess. My guess is that, once again, the mere whiff of a possibility of talks will tip the balance against introduction as far as a majority of LegCo are concerned: CRC remain in favour of delay (some are even talking of waiting until after the summer recess); Meeting Point and the other independent liberals would, I guess, support introduction if, and only if, all prospects of talks had faded and all efforts had been seen to be made to start them; the other independents (Martin Barrow, Vincent Cheng et al) would probably take the same view. Only UDHK could be relied upon to give full support to introduction, but judging from their reaction to gazetting, even from them overt support for the move might well be muted and confined to a few individuals.
13. That is not to say, of course, that if introduction of the legislation takes place in such circumstances, a majority of LegCo would support a move to delay consideration of it, although it would be rash to exclude that nightmare scenario entirely. The probability is that LegCo would not want to be perceived by the community as "copping out", and would set about diluting the package significantly, under what is likely to be a barrage of pressure, overt and covert, from China. However, the course of events following introduction if it ever comes to that is extremely difficult to predict, as it would be to control.
14. We should not have illusions about this: the task of deciding quickly upon a compromise set of proposals might in any case be one which proved to be beyond the capacity of a LegCo which embraces a variety of differing views, has no single predominant party and no pre-eminent personalities. Added to this would be the need to take account of pressures from China while attempting to retain credibility in the community. protracted process, or even deadlock, could not be excluded.
CONFIDENTIAL & PERSONAL