The Tide Turns: Britain's Policy Squeeze Is Sending 20,000 Hong Kong People Home

The Year of the Horse is off to a gallop – and it may be carrying Hong Kong people home.

Local wisdom holds that Bingwu (丙午), the most fire-charged year in the 60-year Chinese calendar cycle, is uniquely auspicious for Hong Kong, a city said to thrive on fire energy. Fire means celebration and confidence: tourists arrive in droves, and those who left are drawn back. Astrology, of course, deserves only a pinch of salt. But the objective data is telling exactly the same story.

Over 20,000 Hong Kong BNO holders in the UK are eyeing a return. Some have already slipped back and restarted in Hong Kong — and the real number could run higher.

A new survey finds that if the UK government goes ahead with tightening permanent residency requirements, 12.8% of Hong Kong BNO holders surveyed would return to Hong Kong – that is roughly 21,000 people. BBC and local media have already spoken with returnees who have quietly slipped back from Britain to Hong Kong, and the real count is climbing well past 20,000. Across the Pacific, the picture mirrors itself: many Hong Kong people who boarded the so-called "lifeboat" to Canada are watching their permanent residency applications drag on indefinitely, stranded between two shores – and more are cutting their losses and heading home.

The UK government has been tightening the screws on new migrants seeking Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR). The new requirements include raising English language standards and imposing income thresholds – a package the Home Office is branding "earned settlement." A public consultation on whether Hong Kong BNO visa holders will be exempted from these new requirements has just wrapped up, and the verdict is imminent. For Hong Kong people already living in the UK, the suspense is grinding – sleep is hard to come by, and contingency plans are quietly being drawn up.

Four Hong Kong community organisations surveyed 1,725 Hong Kong BNO holders and asked one direct question: if ILR is no longer certain, what next? The results are sobering. A full 27.6% said they would leave the UK. Of that group, 12.8% would return to Hong Kong, while 14.8% would try to relocate to another country. With more than 170,000 Hong Kong BNO holders now resident in the UK, that 12.8% translates to roughly 21,000 people making the journey home.

Seeking to land in another country? Around 25,000 people have that idea – but the welcome mat is not out anywhere. Canada, like most destinations, has pulled back on immigration. Finding a new country to call home is genuinely difficult, and many of those 25,000 may ultimately discover they have run out of options. Hong Kong becomes the only door still open. Twenty thousand returnees is therefore the conservative case; the real number will almost certainly be far higher.

No Way Out but Home

Make no mistake: the deeper you look, the starker the numbers become. A UK Member of Parliament surveyed over 6,000 Hong Kong BNO holders and found that 43% of families cannot meet the new requirements. The road ahead is blocked, and those who remain will find daily life increasingly difficult. The survey bears that out: only 22% of respondents said they would "definitely stay in the UK." The others have already decided to find a way out. They have not moved yet simply because the moment has not arrived.

Some Hong Kong people stopped waiting long ago. BBC recently sat down with one returnee who spent three years in the UK and now drives a taxi in Hong Kong. He speaks candidly about the crushing depression that shadowed his time in Britain – a darkness so severe he contemplated suicide, as though he had fallen into a black abyss with no way out. He had planned to endure another three years to obtain British citizenship, caught in a relentless internal debate over staying or leaving. Then came the night he was violently attacked at the restaurant where he worked. The evidence was clear-cut. Police made no arrest even after a full year. That was the moment his faith in British rule of law and human rights gave out entirely. With no reason left to stay, he made his decision. "It was as if I had woken up from a dream – and I have found a whole new meaning of 'home.'"

Online media outlet Kinliu spoke with another returnee who arrived in the UK on a BNO visa at the end of 2024 and was back in Hong Kong just eight months later, now working in the IT sector. From the ground, the reasons for return are a perfect storm: economic pressure, a brutal job market, shifting policies, public safety concerns, and the relentless grind of adapting to life abroad. The cost of living is punishing. Income tax exceeds 30%, and even decent jobs paying £4,000 to £7,000 a month leave precious little once taxes, rent, and daily expenses are stripped out.

And getting hired in the first place is a battle of its own. This returnee sent out 100 applications across the IT sector over six months and received nothing. His decision to return had nothing to do with the ILR policy debate; it was the relentless weight of economic pressure that made the choice for him. Britain, for him, simply was not working.

A Job Market That Won't Budge

Employment conditions across the UK are deteriorating, and the numbers are unambiguous. The unemployment rate hit 5.2% in the fourth quarter of last year – the highest reading since January 2021 – as companies have sharply pulled back on hiring. For Hong Kong BNO holders already struggling to clear income thresholds, a contracting labor market is the final, brutal complication. More and more are arriving at the same conclusion: time to go home.

And it is not just Britain. Canada's Hong Kong reverse migration tide is accelerating, driven by a clear and deliberate policy choice: the Canadian government has intentionally slowed permanent residency processing to suppress overall immigration numbers. Hong Kong people who boarded that Canadian "lifeboat" are among the very first to feel the squeeze.

Canada’s “lifeboat” is stuck in limbo. With PR waits stretching out, more Hong Kong people are quitting the queue and heading home. Pictured: a Hong Kong immigrant advocacy group protests outside Canada’s immigration ministry.

The figures from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) are damning. As of end-October last year, the two streams of the Hong Kong Pathway had taken in 42,040 permanent residency applications – but only 13,520 had been processed, leaving a massive, growing backlog. Estimates now put outstanding applications at 55,000 by 2027, with wait times stretching to a decade. For Hong Kong people marooned on that lifeboat – caught between two worlds, watching their best years tick away – more and more are drawing the same conclusion: stop waiting, turn back, and start over in Hong Kong.

Years ago, Hong Kong people left in waves for Britain and Canada. Now the world has turned full circle. The Year of the Horse has brought a genuine reversal of the tide, and this "reverse migration wave" is proof that Hong Kong is far from finished – it remains a city full of life and possibility. For Hong Kong people worn down in a foreign land – the tired bird that at last finds its way home – that is, when all is said and done, something to welcome.

What Say You?

** The blog article is the sole responsibility of the author and does not represent the position of our company. **

The US–Iran war keeps everyone guessing. American forces made a show of force by blockading the Strait of Hormuz, with combat seemingly on the verge of breaking out — yet Trump suddenly shifted to a softer tone, suggesting both sides could return to the negotiating table within days and that extending the two-week ceasefire wasn't necessary. A deal may be within reach. But given his habit of reversing course, everyone would do well to wait and see before celebrating. While the Iranian situation churns with uncertainty, Ukraine's plight has quietly been forgotten — President Zelensky left to wither alone.

In an interview with German broadcaster ZDF, Zelensky made no effort to hide his distress. Since America launched its campaign against Iran, he said, Washington has completely lost interest in Ukraine. Not only have negotiations ground to a halt, but arms and military equipment deliveries have abruptly stopped — precisely as Russian forces are pressing their offensive hard, leaving Ukraine in a dangerously exposed position.

Iran stole America's attention — and Ukraine paid the price. Talks frozen, arms cut off, Zelensky vents to German TV.

For the first time, Zelensky has come to understand that America, for all its self-image as a superpower, simply cannot stretch across multiple fronts without showing its limits. When the "big boss" proves unreliable, the "junior partner" is left to fend for itself.

Washington's Attention Has Shifted

Zelensky has had his fill of being sidelined, and the bitterness has finally spilled over. He told ZDF that after the Iran war began, America's focus visibly shifted. Special Envoy Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Kushner — the two men who had been mediating between Washington and Moscow — are now "constantly in talks with Iran," leaving no bandwidth for Ukraine. As a result, peace talks between Russia and Ukraine have been frozen since late February, with no timeline in sight for their resumption.

What makes matters worse is that Trump, already overwhelmed by the Iran campaign, has quietly shelved the Russia-Ukraine file and stopped pressing Putin. Zelensky warned that without pressure, Russia has nothing to fear and will act with impunity. Putin has clearly read the situation. After a 32-hour Orthodox Easter ceasefire, Russian forces resumed their offensive immediately, seizing the opportunity to push for an advantage.

The Air Defence Crisis

The bigger crisis isn't the stalled talks — it's the weapons shortage. Zelensky pointed out that US military aid deliveries have slowed to a crawl, with air defence systems the most acute problem. Supplies of PAC-3 and PAC-2 interceptor missiles have shown serious gaps, and Ukraine could soon be left effectively "undefended," forced to watch helplessly as Russian missiles and drones fly in unchallenged.

Ukraine's air defences are running on empty. Interceptor missiles are critically short, and Russian strikes keep coming.

The reason Washington cannot deliver comes down to the Iran campaign itself. Since the war began, Iran has fired multiple missiles and drones at US military bases in Gulf states and at Israel. American forces have burned through enormous quantities of interceptor missiles countering these attacks, stockpiles are nearly depleted, and replenishment has no quick fix. The only option has been to rob Peter to pay Paul — redirecting air defence equipment destined for other countries to the Middle East, with Ukraine inevitably caught in the fallout.

Watching this crisis unfold, Zelensky is in a panic. Unless a US–Iran ceasefire materialises, there is little hope of American arms deliveries resuming. Ukraine has been forced to rely on itself, rushing to produce its own "FP-5 Flamingo" air defence missiles as a stopgap — though even that amounts to a distant rainstorm that cannot quench today's fire.

Adding insult to injury, Trump — in a bid to boost global oil supply and hold down rising prices — granted a 30-day sanctions waiver on Russia, allowing countries worldwide to purchase Russian oil and natural gas. The result: Russia pocketed an effortless €6 billion, turning the war into a windfall that helps fund its military campaign against Ukraine.

America Stepping Back From Europe

The "big boss" cooling on Zelensky is not entirely a matter of bandwidth. It also reflects a deliberate intent to distance America from Europe and leave the continent to clean up the Ukrainian mess on its own.

A recent development makes this attitude plain. According to Politico, War Secretary Hegseth will skip Wednesday's meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group — a forum that brings together defence ministers from over 50 pro-Ukraine nations — sending Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby in his place. Hegseth's snub signals clearly that the Trump administration no longer treats Ukraine as a priority.

Zelensky's predicament is a tragedy largely of his own making. He placed too much faith in the American "big boss," believing that with Washington firmly in his corner, he could go all-in against Russia. Today, he has finally learned the hard way: this "big boss" cannot manage multiple wars at once. Bogged down in Iran, America has no capacity left to care whether its "junior partner" sinks or swims.

Lai Ting-yiu