General Discussion

Some of you may be aware that a campaign has been waged to obtain Right of Abode in the UK for the Hong Kong soldiers and sailors left behind in Hong Kong at the time of the handover to China in 1997.

At an early stage, members of Dawlish Branch, The Royal British Legion, became involved and wrote to every MP in the country to highlight this issue - of which the vast majority were completely unaware.

Since then, members of the Branch have travelled to London to meet HK Veterans, various politicians, numerous Home Secretaries etc often at their own expense.

During the course of the Campaign the RoA team have written over 5,000 letters, dealt with 5 Prime Ministers, 7 Home Secretaries, gone through a General Election, Brexit and more recently the COVID lockdown. All of which disrupted normal Parliamentary proceedings and frustrated our efforts.

The RoA Campaign team, including various members of the Dawlish Branch RBL, enlisted the support of (initially) Chris Huhne and for the bulk of the campaign, Andrew Rosindell MP. After numerous meetings and representations to a multitude of MPs (and gaining the active support of many including the now Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle), Andrew Rosindell initiated a number of Early Day Motions (EDM), which also helped promote and gain support for RoA.

Although we are only talking about 301 veterans and their dependents, this campaign has been on going in public for some 12 years.

On Wednesday 29th March 2023 the following exchange took place in the House of Lords:

Well done Hugh and Dawlish RBL, which I know you helped in that a great deal!!!

Thank you.

I should add that Dawlish was the ONLY RBL Branch to get involved with this. Indeed, HQ RBL did not even recognise our guys as British soldiers until we were about 3 years into it. Now you can watch them parade proudly passed the Cenotaph in the RBL Remembrance Day parade in London which they have done every year since their acceptance. I'm sure they'll get a TV mention this year.