Chief Executive Carrie Lam is often described as out of touch with reality. Her recent remarks behind-the-scenes during a break in a taped television interview have offered another piece of evidence on how divorced she has been from the masses.

After mocking i-Cable news controller Oscar Lee’s questions for her as “mild,” Lam went on to dismiss his suggested topic on the renewed brain drain as groundless. Speaking in colloquial Cantonese, she said: “Emigration has been exaggerated. Where are the good places to emigrate these days? That is woo woo.”

The conversation was not meant to be aired. The footage was leaked last week after the station has abruptly fired 40 of its news department staffers. Another 16 reporters and editors have resigned in solidarity, triggering calls to unsubscribe the cable service.

In her eyes, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is head and shoulder above other places. That might as well be the case before she has taken over the helm. She is simply oblivious to the fact that two fundamental changes have taken place under her watch. First, residents have lost confidence in the future of the city. Second, key western countries have opened their doors wider for disillusioned Hong Kongers.

The prolonged pandemic has disrupted people’s plan to travel, let alone to emigrate. Yet, contrary to what Lam has claimed, the way the SAR is being governed has in effect kept emigration top of mind for many Hong Kongers. The extent of this latest wave of talent outflow will not be immediately conspicuous. A family’s decision to quit often takes several years to materialize. The adverse impact will become more glaring after Lam’s current term of office.

Lam asked where a good place for Hong Kong people to go would be. A survey by the Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong last year provided the answer. The research revealed that almost one six SAR citizens had already started preparations to live elsewhere. Their most preferred destinations were the UK (23.8 per cent), Australia (11.6 per cent) and Taiwan (10.7 per cent). The list also included Canada, New Zealand and Singapore.

The findings tallied with Yahoo’s search engine analytics. The pattern in which people seek information online is a fair indicator of public priorities and concerns. On Wednesday, Yahoo unveiled its top 10 search topics of the year in Hong Kong. “Application for BNO” has finished in the fourth place, trailing behind face mask, employment protection scheme and new coronavirus. In the fifth position is social gathering restriction. “Emigration” ranks sixth ahead of class suspension, national security law, infection cluster and Ant Group’s derailed IPO.

In a nutshell, only COVID-19 related matters have surpassed emigration on Hong Kongers’ collective agenda.

The British National (Overseas) pathway to UK citizenship is particularly attractive to the Hong Kong middle-class due to its low threshold. Unlike investment for residency schemes, the barrier for entry is minimum. BNO visa holders will have the right to work and study in the UK for five years, at the end of which they may file for “settled” status. They can apply for citizenship after the sixth year. The only practical barrier is for the BNO passport holders to sustain themselves and their dependents financially during the period.

Outgoing British Consul-general Andrew Heyn was on RTHK’s The Pulse last Friday. He said about 120,000 to 150,000 Hong Kong residents would travel to the UK with BNO visas when the “5+1” scheme came into effect next year. He expected the figure would top 250,000 to 320,000 in the next five years.

This was the first time that a British official has ventured on the record an estimate on the inflow from Hong Kong. In mid-July, the Financial Times quoted an anonymous source from the British Foreign Ministry as projecting 200,000 Hong Kongers to land with BNO visas. Apparently, London has upped its figures as the social situation continues to deteriorate in the SAR.

The UK is poised to take a step further by removing a major hurdle for the potential emigrants from Hong Kong. Many couples with children are worried that they might not be able to find gainful employments especially in the first half year. Uprooting their families would come with considerable risks.

Reportedly, the British government will allow one of the parents to stay and work in Hong Kong, while the other spouse could take their children to study in the UK. The offer resonates with many parents who are eager to lift their children from the local education system. Hong Kongers are no strangers to such an “astronaut” arrangement, which was common in the previous exodus straddling the 1997 transition of sovereignty.

History has many twists and turns. The BNO passports were first issued in 1987 after the British Parliament had rushed through the Hong Kong Act 1985. The new overseas national status was meant to ensure that the empire’s colonial subjects in Hong Kong, or British Dependent Territory Citizens, have no claim to residency in the UK and by extension the European Union. Three decades later, HKSAR residents born before the handover could soon use their BNO passports as a political lifeboat to the UK, which is no longer part of the EU.

Another important chapter is being written on Hong Kong, but the head of the HKSAR is simply blind to the historical irony.

(Andy Ho is a public affairs consultant. A former political editor of the South China Morning Post, he served as Information Coordinator at the Chief Executive’s Office of the HKSAR Government from 2006 to 2012.)

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