Parliamentary inquiry in Britain: The plot thickens

Grenville Cross says the UK political group planning an investigation into alleged police brutality is covertly funded by a Hong Kong outfit which stirs violent protests

Although SHK operates in the shadows, making full use of anonymous Facebook accounts, it is known to have close links with radical students in the universities. It is also allied with Hong Kong Watch (HKW), the antiChina think tank operated in London by the serial fantasist Benedict Rogers, and which spews out calumnies about Hong Kong and its police force on an almost daily basis.

‘One lie has the power to tarnish a thousand truths”, said Al David, the author.

In March, an astonishing discovery was made. A scrutiny of the United Kingdom Parliament’s Register of All-Parliamentary Groups, an obscure record of which few observers are aware, revealed that the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong (APPG), which was established on Nov 5, was being covertly funded by the virulently anti-police crowdfunding group, Stand with Hong Kong (SHK). The real concern, however, arose because the APPG, while being funded by SHK, is planning an ostensibly independent inquiry into alleged protestrelated abuses by the Hong Kong Police Force.

The APPG’s secretariat is the Whitehouse Consultancy Ltd (Whitehouse), which, as of Nov 5, had received 36,000 pounds ($44,700) from SHK. This appears to have been simply an initial contribution, with SHK pumping in more funds when necessary. As the inquiry gets underway, anybody wishing to submit “evidence” is being told to send it to Whitehouse, which, while taking money from SHK with one hand, is organizing a purportedly independent parliamentary inquiry with the other.

Since March, more eye-opening information has come to light concerning SHK’s attempts to acquire influence with the APPG. In August, Bob Seely, a British member of Parliament, visited Hong Kong, and all his expenses on the three-day trip were covered by SHK, according to the “Register of Members’ Interests”. However, although they paid for his flights, accommodation, security protection, travel and food, this “freebie” was not provided out of the kindness of their hearts. Rather, their largesse was an investment in the future, designed to butter him up, and Seely has since been appointed vice-chairman of the APPG. However, consistently with SHK’s sometimes obsessive secrecy, Seely, when requested, was unable to provide his donor’s address, simply writing “private” in the register.

Even more intriguingly, the register reveals that SHK also financed the “travel and accommodation” of David Alton, when he visited Hong Kong from Nov 23 to 25, as an “election monitor”. Alton, an obscure member of the UK’s House of Lords, had, like Seely, also recently taken up a senior position in the APPG. What is fascinating, however, for anyone wishing to have a global overview, is that, just prior to his Hong Kong visit, Alton, from Oct 1 to 5, visited Taiwan, to “meet government ministers and officials”, with his “flights and accommodation” all provided for him by the government there.

Although SHK operates in the shadows, making full use of anonymous Facebook accounts, it is known to have close links with radical students in the

The author is a senior counsel, law professor and criminal justice analyst, and was previously the director of public prosecutions of Hong Kong. universities. It is also allied with Hong Kong Watch (HKW), the anti-China think tank operated in London by the serial fantasist Benedict Rogers, and which spews out calumnies about Hong Kong and its police force on an almost daily basis. Indeed, SHK’s public statements even bear a remarkable resemblance to those of HKW, with shared syntax and terminology. This may explain why SHK goes to such lengths to cover its tracks, suggesting it may either be HKW’s alter ego, or else one of its fronts.

Indeed, SHK not only conceals its organizers and addresses, but uses anonymity whenever it can get away with it. When it traduces the police force in, for example, Hong Kong Free Press, its authors, instead of using their names, describe themselves as being a “Guest Contributor”, perhaps a ruse to conceal the involvement of HKW. As to where it is based, SHK is deliberately vague, claiming that “some of us are in Hong Kong while others are overseas, despite not having met each other in person we are united in our love of the city”. Although it says it raises its money by “public fundraising”, this, if true, is concerning.

However objectionable it may be, in moral terms, for a British parliamentary group to be holding an inquiry into the police force when it is being covertly funded by a group which has maligned them, there are also ethical concerns. When money is raised by crowdfunding, its origins will often be dubious, and sometimes tainted. This is why, for example, when the online platform LIHKG offered HKW its “excess donations” on July 12, Rogers declined, with obvious regret, explaining that “as a registered UK charity, we are obliged to perform due diligence on all donations and verify our sources of funding in order to comply with the Charity Commissioners’ risk management and transparency requirements”.

As even HKW realized that it could not safely accept unsourced funding, it beggars belief that the APPG, which comprises seasoned parliamentarians, is either ignorant of this, or, worse, chooses to simply disregard it. Although, despite the impression it has tried to give, the APPG, as the UK Parliament’s website explains, has no official status within Parliament, this does not mean that it can simply dispense with due diligence, and take the money of uncertain origin from SHK. Given their closeness, the least that HKW can do is to alert the APPG to the dangers, as its own due diligence concerns apply equally to them.

Indeed, therein lies another scandal. Not only is the APPG being covertly financed by SHK, but it is also being indirectly controlled by HKW itself. Although HKW’s stock-in-trade is fallacious criticism of the Hong Kong Police Force, which earned Rogers a rebuke from the UK foreign office in January, it is nonetheless calling the shots behind the scenes in the APPG. This is because two of its patrons, Alistair Carmichael and David Alton, have insinuated themselves into senior positions, as, respectively, co-chairman and vice-chairman of the APPG. The proposed inquiry, therefore, is being controlled, in different ways, by SHK and HKW, both deeply biased against the Hong Kong Police Force, and its conclusions are preordained.

This is not, therefore, a credible investigation, but an exercise in jungle justice. All right-thinking people should shun it like the plague, not least because it tarnishes British notions of fair play. If the UK consul general, Andrew Heyn, has not already alerted his superiors in London to what is afoot, he will hopefully do so now, as they are entitled to know when their parliamentary system is being abused.

On a more positive note, the British government may already have rumbled SHK. Although SHK submitted a so-called “report” on Hong Kong to the foreign office in December, it complained, on March 29, that it had been “met with silence”, for which there is one possible explanation. Their “report” was basically a crude, partisan rant, which accused senior British police officers in the HKPF of “gross violations of human rights”, and demanded sanctions against all and sundry. It may well have ended up where it belongs, in the waste bin, and, once Heyn tips off his superiors, the APPG’s proposed report will, hopefully, suffer a similar fate.