But the former prime minister was always known for show over substance, bombast over well-thought-out policy. Equally unforgivable has been ex-Hong Kong governor Chris Patten, who lent his enormous prestige among some Hong Kong people – I used to be one of them – to promote the scheme because of a warped sense of colonial responsibility to his former subjects and a mythological belief that Hong Kong was descending into a Maoist hell. Well, when you are out of (colonial) office, the best thing you can do is to shut the hell up!
After spending a whole life in the bubble of British politics, and having retired with no doubt a very sizeable nest egg, Patten probably has no idea how many economically disadvantaged Britons actually live. No doubt in his mind, great Britannica offers an idyllic life for all comers.
Aspiring BN(O)ers should read this latest post on Quora from a certain Joe Kuan. I don’t know who he is other than his claim that he was originally from Hong Kong and has worked as a chef for a long time in Britain.
The post is full of common sense, he seems to be speaking from experience, and it accords with my own in moving to Canada.
At any rate, emigration is one thing people really should conduct thorough research on before reaching an informed, independent decision rather than succumbing to FOMO (fear of missing out). Do it for your family, if not yourself.
Investment and emigration are two things in life where missing out is often the least worst outcome.
Of course, if you are single and have few responsibilities, then emigrating, like rolling the dice, may well be the right, if risky move.
But Joe was not addressing young people, rather those who have always lived in Hong Kong and are near the end rather than the start of their working life.
He wrote: “I have a group of HK school friends that I have kept [in] contact [with] as I visit HK regularly. Since the riots, all of them have suddenly [spoken about] moving to [the] UK. I immediately tried to stop them, it’s a dead end and they won’t survive.
“They are in their 50s with kid[s], don’t have millions to retire, middle income, none of them have any technical skills. I told them, you will have to take a ‘massive discount’ of yourself when it is not your home turf. I have tried many times to persuade them. Of course, other people’s grass is always greener but they [have] never seen my tax and utility bills which are three times higher [than] what they paid in HK.”
Now many BN(O) migrants are approaching their fifth year. In Cantonese, the BN(O) scheme is often called “the 5+1”. Whether they get their permanent residency, or even citizenship or not, many have been disappointed with British life.
And with low incomes, many BN(O)ers will see their chances diminished at securing permanent residency in a country increasingly hostile to immigration.
That was probably top of most of their minds when an overwhelming majority of them reportedly voted Conservative in the recent election that saw the Labour Party win by a landslide.
Many seem to think Labour will be more hostile. However, cracking down on immigration is now the general trend across Europe, and the UK is no different.
The reality in the UK, and in many Western economies, is that unless you have a sizeable nest egg or an existing regular source of income to depend on, your life is going to be a vale of tears. Generally, mature or developed Western economies with slow growth offer fewer job opportunities and career openings even for locals, let alone newcomers.
According to the Economist, only half of BN(O)ers aged between 25 and 64 are employed – compared with three-quarters of this age group in general – and only one in three are working full-time.
The relative ease of finding jobs in Hong Kong certainly doesn’t apply in the UK or Canada.
As Joe wrote: “The only way to make a decent living [in the UK] is having a skill like a chef, plumber, surgeon, computing, etc. Forget any management roles.”
I would add nursing to the top of the list, a profession now more in demand in many Western countries than doctors.
Some 201,877 BN(O) visas were approved as of March since the scheme was launched in 2021. Of these, 144,400 people actually bothered to show up in the UK as of late May. So out of 2.5 million Hongkongers estimated to qualify for BN(O) passports, less than 6 per cent showed up. That’s after almost four years.
Most Hong Kong people are far more realistic than many BN(O)ers. That’s why so many are shopping, dining and finding entertainment up north in the land of communist totalitarianism. George Orwell’s 1984 sadly did not offer a vision of giant malls and huge bookstores, hi-tech public transport systems and an unending variety of eateries.
In the end, and that’s soon enough, many BN(O)ers will return to the city once they get their British passports with full citizenship, or not. Perhaps that will make it all worth it despite having to tough it out for years. Some have called it an “immigration jail”.
There used to be a general unwritten online rule among BN(O)ers to only praise life in the UK, and avoid mentioning negative stories. If you try to tell a sob story, expect to be attacked online by gangs of “yellow-ribbon” cyberbullies.
More recently though, far more realistic accounts of hardship have surfaced about isolation, mental health issues, unemployment, divorce, discrimination, high costs of living, crime and even homelessness.
They are finding that there is a limit to Western-worshipping and democracy-worshipping when you can barely put food on the table.
Joe wrote: “The [UK] economy will only get worse, inflation and tax will only get higher. All these BN(O)ers keep parroting ‘for my kids’ future’ and ‘freedom’. What kids’ future? Graduates can’t even find a job in the UK.
“They don’t even know what freedom really is, there are economic freedom, civil right[s] freedom, religious freedom, political freedom. Within that, economic freedom is the foremost important of all. If you can’t make ends meet, all other freedoms are far less attractive or irrelevant.”
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tK%2FMqWWcp51kvLG1zaKmp2eYpLuoecqopaBln6W2r7XOp2aaqqSesK2xjmxpcGhmbH1wrs2oZKybmJq6pnnMqKmeZZOnwqa4jK2pmqhdqbakt8StZKmZopaxqr%2FE