Hong Kong Scotland

Up to three million Hong Kong residents have just been offered the chance to settle in the UK and ultimately apply for British citizenship. I think they should all come to Scotland.

Hong Kong Island is around 12 thousand hectares, but there are any number of barely inhabited islands or peninsulars in Scotland of a similar size where Hong Kong could be recreated.

 The Hongkongers could remake the city they were forced to leave due to China infringing their democratic rights. It would not be as warm as present-day Hong Kong, but it would be free.

Scotland is the most sparsely populated part of Britain with 70 people per square kilometre compared to 430 in England, 151 in Wales, and 136 in Northern Ireland.

Nicola Sturgeon has frequently mentioned that she would like more immigration into Scotland in order to make up for our aging population. Well settling three million Hong Kong residents in Scotland would give her exactly what she has been asking for.

Scotland at present suffers from an economy that is in deficit and a we could benefit massively from an injection of new hard-working people who understand business and know how to make money.

If it were possible to replicate Hong Kong in Scotland, there would be a brand-new tourist attraction ready to attract people from all over Europe just to visit a little part of Scotland that was Chinese.

Because Hong Kong Scotland would be concentrated in as small an area as it occupies now, it would not impinge on the rest of the Scottish countryside. Of course, Scottish Hongkongers would be free to live and work where they pleased as would all other British citizens, but it would be expected that Scottish Hong Kong would retain its unity even as it took up certain Scottish aspects. Perhaps Scottish Hongkongers might decide to wear kilts with a Hong Kong Tartan or come up with Chinese variants of Haggis.

Of course, it might be expected that Scottish Hongkongers grateful for Britain’s role in giving them a new home might be initially less keen to vote for Scottish independence, but this need not worry someone with Nicola Sturgeon’s powers of persuasion. Not one would triad disobey her hair dryer phoning technique.

But even if Scottish Hong Kong eventually became tired of being ruled by the SNP, they could vote for the Hong Kong National Party HKNP and declare independence from Scotland. After all each Hong Kong Scot would have just the same right as any other Scot to vote for independence.  

But if Scottish Hongkongers instead taught the virtues of free markets that they learned from their Scottish financial secretary John James Cowperthwaite then there would be no need to have the SNP at all.