1990-00-DE
134
SECURITY BRANCH
863 9074 F.15
HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
10 March 1993
香港立法局
一九九三年三月十日
134
will vote in favour of the motion and then after that, as suggested by Mr BARROW, they will take the case very forcefully to the British Government.
in the event the
you voted for the matin
the motion DIST).
This morning, Mr President, I made a personal appeal to the Governor. I went to see him and I said this is a very important motion debate and I hope the Government will support us. And, of course, we repeatedly hear that one cannot put a piece of tissue paper between the Governor and the Prime Minister and if the relationship is really that close, I said to the Governor: "Please use your authority, use your friendship, to persuade the British Prime Minister to persuade the Home Secretary to do Hong Kong a favour". I told the Governor the Hong Kong people are very cynical and very suspicious of Britain. Why? Because Britain would never even make a small sacrifice for the benefit of the Hong Kong people. And I told him this morning saying: "Now is the opportunity for you to tell the United Kingdom Government and it is not even a small sacrifice to do something for the very, very vulnerable group in Hong Kong. We are not even asking you for 3 to 4 million passports, we are just asking full British citizenship for 7 000 people".
And I am very disappointed, Mr President, to hear the Government's lame, weak response. I think we, the Hong Kong people and the ethnic minorities, deserve much better. I certainly hope that all of us will vote in favour of the motion, and I mean including the three officials, and then together we will take this case to London. And I am sure if the Governor is behind it, if the Hong Kong Government is behind it and if the whole Council is behind it, we should have a fighting chance of helping these people to get what has been robbed of them. I mean we were all once British nationals, but Parliament by successive acts downgraded us and turned us into third, fourth class citizens. And now some of us are going to be Chinese nationals, but the ethnic minorities are going to be nothing. This British status is meaningless and, as the Secretary for Security said, it could not be transmitted to the third generation.
So I think, Mr President, we in this Council and the ethnic minorities have a very powerful moral case and Britain must be reminded, and reminded very forcefully, that she cannot turn her back to her subjects and I certainly hope that all the three officials will vote in favour of the motion.
Thank you.
Question on the motion put and agreed to.
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