The UK government is demanding answers after Liberal Democrat MP Wera Hobhouse was denied entry to Hong Kong during a personal trip to visit her newborn grandson. The 65-year-old MP for Bath says she was detained, questioned, and ultimately deported without explanation — a move officials in Westminster are calling “deeply concerning.”
Hobhouse landed in Hong Kong on Thursday with the intention of meeting her three-month-old grandson for the first time. Instead, she was held at the airport for several hours, had her passport confiscated, and was interrogated about her job and travel purpose. Authorities also searched and swabbed her luggage before escorting her onto a return flight to the UK.
Her husband, William, was granted entry but chose to fly back in solidarity. Their son, a university academic who has lived in Hong Kong since 2019, had been waiting to receive them in the arrivals hall.
No formal explanation was given for her deportation, but Hobhouse suspects it was politically motivated. She is a vocal critic of Beijing’s human rights record and a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (Ipac), a global coalition of lawmakers who have condemned China’s crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong.
“I just wanted to hold my grandson,” Hobhouse told The Sunday Times. “They never gave me a reason. I was devastated. I didn’t cry, but I was close to tears.”
The UK’s business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, confirmed the government is seeking a full account of the incident. “If Wera was denied access because she’s a British MP, we take that extremely seriously,” he said on the Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy echoed the concerns and pledged to raise the matter with authorities in both Hong Kong and Beijing. He called it “deeply concerning” that a sitting MP, on a private visit, was turned away without cause.
The timing of the incident has further inflamed tensions, as it coincides with UK ministerial visits to China aimed at strengthening trade ties. A group of cross-party British MPs from Ipac issued a joint statement, calling the deportation “an affront to democratic principles and personal freedoms.”
“The fact that Hong Kong authorities felt emboldened to deport a UK parliamentarian while British ministers are in the region is an insult to our Parliament,” the statement read. “It signals a disturbing erosion of international norms.”
Hobhouse believes the deportation was a tactic to silence her. “It’s chilling that authoritarian countries can now treat elected officials like this. The old rules of mutual respect between democracies appear to be breaking down,” she said in an interview with the BBC.
China has previously barred several UK politicians — including Iain Duncan Smith, Nusrat Ghani, and Tom Tugendhat — for criticizing the Communist Party. However, Hobhouse is the first MP known to be refused entry to Hong Kong since the 1997 handover.
Deputy Liberal Democrat leader Daisy Cooper criticized Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch’s silence on the matter, accusing her of failing to stand up for UK parliamentarians. “Will she defend Hobhouse as she failed to defend Labour MPs blocked from entering Israel?” Cooper asked on social media.
As pressure mounts on the UK government to defend its lawmakers abroad, the Hobhouse incident highlights growing strains in the UK-China relationship — and raises questions about the future of free political engagement between the two nations.
