UK Has Dysfunctional Political System: CY Leung

Former chief executive CY Leung on Friday called the British political system “ineffective and dysfunctional”, joining a group of political figures who criticised the United Kingdom for revoking a seminar invitation to a group of Hong Kong lawmakers.

Legco had been invited to join the Westminster Seminar for a discussion of effective parliaments, but the invitation was withdrawn by the UK’s Commonwealth Parliamentary Association last month, citing the “deteriorating situation" and "serious erosion of political plurality and participation" in Hong Kong.

Speaking at an event, Leung, who’s also vice chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said the UK has its own problems.

"It is extreme irony for this UK parliamentary group to showcase the so-called 'effective parliament'. It is worldwide consensus that the British political system, and not just its parliament, is totally ineffective and dysfunctional," he said. "Hong Kong has done better, a lot better than the UK since it became a Chinese special administrative region in 1997."

The vice-chairwoman of the Basic Law Committee, Maria Tam, said the Legislative Council has improved since Hong Kong’s return to the motherland.

"The legislature under the Basic Law is far more powerful and democratic than under the British rule... We have far more democratic and acceptable arrangement after 1997 than before that," she said.

New People’s Party lawmaker Dominic Lee, one of those who had been set to attend the seminar in March, said there were no major changes in the SAR's political system since the invitation was made last November.

"We felt that it's part of a bigger Western rhetoric, which basically is anti-China, so they are using every possible avenue to criticise and slander our political system, especially our enhanced political system since 2021," Lee said.