City Of London Response To David Alton’s Questions On Hong Kong

EMAIL SENT BY COUNCILLOR GRAEME HARROWER TO THE CITY OF LONDON COURT OF COMMON COUNCIL ON 30 JUNE 2021

I attach a reply from the Lord Mayor and Chair of Policy to Lord Alton’s email of 11 June calling on the City Corporation to reassess its relationship with the Chinese government.

The Lord Mayor and Chair of Policy don’t mention that they voted against the motion of the Court of Common Council to which they refer.

They haven’t copied this reply to the other members of the Court, in whose name they are appeasing the genocidal gangsters of Beijing.

Those other members will, though, have an opportunity to make their views known when an anti-appeasement motion is put to the Court in September.

Even the Court may baulk at facilitating oppression and modern slavery through conferring respectability on the perpetrators, all for the sake of pandering to commercial greed.

History judges appeasers harshly. It was said of Neville Chamberlain, who gave an infamous appeasement speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet in 1938 (40:56 Neville Chamberlain – Speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet in…), that:

“Whatever else may be said of Chamberlain’s public life, his reputation will in the last resort depend upon assessments of this … policy [appeasement]. This was the case when he left office in 1940 and it remains so sixty years later. To expect otherwise is rather like hoping that Pontius Pilate will one day be judged as a successful provincial administrator of the Roman Empire.”

Chamberlain was, perhaps appropriately, granted the Honorary Freedom of the City of London in 1940.

29th June 2021

Dear Lord Alton,

Thank you for your email and for making us aware of your views. We would like to reiterate that we condemn all human rights abuses, wherever they are found.

As you mention, last year the Court of Common Council of the City Corporation reiterated its support for the 1984 Sino-British Declaration on Hong Kong. The motion noted the UK Government’s view that China’s imposition of the National Security Law breaches the terms of this treaty and hoped for a return to the state of affairs prior to that at the earliest opportunity.

Foreign policy is the responsibility of the UK Government and it is for them to take the lead on these issues. We are guided by the UK Government on how and when to engage with the Chinese Government and we will continue to seek guidance from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office on the current status of our relations with China. The Foreign Secretary recently said the UK is looking to form a constructive and calibrated approach to engage with China, including on climate change and being clear on the values that the UK holds, and we will continue to take their lead.*

Yours sincerely, Alderman William Russell, The Rt Hon. The Lord Mayor & Catherine McGuinness, Chair, Policy and Resources.

*Note added by Reclaim EC1. There is a remarkable similarity between the issue dodging and misleading rhetoric used here and that found in the reply Russell and McGuinness last month wrote (scroll down link for that correspondence) in response to the letter from the World Uyghur Congress. These are positions that have been thoroughly demolished but that doesn’t stop Russell and McGuinness repeating themselves like a broken record.