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the line in Parliament that the provisions of this Act "will in no way affect the ability of the Government to fulfil all our obligations under the JD". We said something similar to
the Chinese.
B
7. The real risk is not that LegCo could change its constitution against our wishes, but that the Liberals could embarrass us by obliging the Governor or HMG to invoke long dormant reserve powers in order to block the wishes of the elected members. The most likely issue would be the number of directly elected seats in LegCo. Apart from one isolated rumour, have no evidence that the UDHK are thinking at
L
we
present of mounting such a challenge.
The Options
8.
We are therefore dealing with a hypothetical problem, although one which could become actual quite quickly. The Governor's telegram identifies five options. None of them are without drawbacks. He rightly dimisses three of them at
the outset:
-
allowing any action by LegCo under the Act to take its course and accepting the consequences (Option A). This would be to hand unfettered legislative power to LegCo, and would provoke a major row with the Chinese as well as signalling an abdication of responsibility by HMG.
- To disapply the relevant part of the Act to Hong Kong (Option C). This would require primary legislation in the UK and a debate in Parliament.
-
Accepting that the Governor would assent to any Bill LegCo passed under the Act, and leaving it for The Queen, on the advice of HMG, to disallow the Bill (Option E). As the Governor says this would be a very clumsy approach which
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