𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Lai, a British citizen, is 78 years old and suffering from a litany of serious health problems, from diabetes and cataracts to heart issues and significant weight loss. Five years held mostly in solitary confinement in Hong Kong’s sweltering jails, denied access to independent medical care, has left him in a bad way.

The pro-democracy advocate was found guilty on jumped-up national security charges by a kangaroo court in December. He faces life in prison when sentencing is finally delivered later this year. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is punishing the pro-democracy advocate for using his popular Apple Daily newspaper to push for universal suffrage to Hong Kong – for exercising the freedom of expression that both Britain and China are treaty-bound to protect under the Sino-British Declaration.

China has trashed that declaration and gotten away with it pretty much scot-free. One consequence of the Hong Kong authorities crushing the city’s pro-democracy movement was Britain put bilateral relations in the freezer. Starmer now wants a defrost, despite nothing having changed in Hong Kong. The city still holds more than 600 political prisoners, including Jimmy Lai, former student leader Joshua Wong, and human rights barrister Chow Hang-tung.

What does the PM expect in return for this historic gesture of goodwill? His City of London advisors have told him riches await, that Beijing holds the key to revitalising our economy. There has even been talk of reviving the so-called “Golden Era” of Sino-British relations.

This is hogwash and he should know better. That decade-long embrace of the Chinese party-state, led by David Cameron and George Osborne, left Britain with massive bills for extracting Huawei and Hikvision surveillance equipment from security networks, and China General Nuclear Corp from nuclear power projects. Britain woke up to the fact that the CCP is not a responsible partner but a security threat, hellbent on undermining our democracy, and took steps to untangle the mess.

In any case, China accounts for just a fraction (3%) of UK trade and has shown little interest in opening up its markets to British professional services, not least the Hong Kong and Shanghai Commercial Bank executives who have Starmer’s ear. They reportedly met with China’s Ministry of Commerce on Friday but were told not to expect much when Starmer arrives.

The PM should take the hint and stop listening to a bank whose name clearly denotes their focus on the other side of the world rather than Britain. They are not going to deliver him the headlines he needs to turn around his domestic popularity crisis.

Returning with Lai, on the other hand, would be a legacy-defining feat. The leaders of Canada, Ireland and the United States all discussed his plight during meetings with Xi over the last few months, but Lai is British and it must be Sir Keir – a knight of the realm – who leads the charge. The prime minister has said that securing Lai’s freedom “is a priority for the British government”. Now’s the time to prove it.