THE son of pro-democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai has said the UK government has given the Chinese government what it wants without securing his father’s freedom.

Speaking on GB News Sebastian Lai said: “We were guaranteed one country, two systems until 2047, it’s obviously not 2047 and they’ve essentially imprisoned my father, imprisoned his colleagues for campaigning for democracy. He’s incredibly proud to be British.

“The Prime Minister publicly said that a closer relationship with China means that you can bring these cases up. Well, my father’s case is the ultimate test, because we’ve given an embassy away, we’ve given a very important trip away. What has China done to abate our national security concerns?

“If they can’t even put a 78-year-old man on a plane, whose health is so bad, who hasn’t done anything wrong, and send him back to the UK, that’s all you need to know about how China views us and about this relationship.

“I don’t think we are in as bad a state as sometimes we seem to think ourselves to be in.

“Hong Kong functions as a financial centre. It’s incredibly important for a financial centre to have a functioning rule of law, which we instituted, which took decades upon decades upon decades to build to the reputation that Hong Kong once had.

“And amazingly, within five years, they managed to destroy it.

“They’ve essentially weaponised the legal system to go after my father, and other pro democracy campaigners. Look, this charge of collusion with foreign forces, which my father got 20 years for, which is comical. He’s 78, in 20 years, he’d be almost 100. And even if he serves a tenth of that, I don’t think he has that much time.

“Collusion necessitates some nefarious benefit. They have found, after five years going through all the stuff that the ‘nefarious benefit’ is democracy in Hong Kong. That’s not nefarious. Every single person has one vote. It’s one vote and the knowledge that, because of his work, because of his life, Hong Kong was a free and better place.

“It’s because of Apple Daily and their courage to keep reporting the truth. In the inaugural editorial of Apple Daily, they said that we are not scared of the handover in 1997 when the UK was going to give British Hong Kong back to China.

“They, of course, were scared, but we refused to be intimidated by fear. You know, my father’s incredibly courageous, but he fears the same as anybody fears.

“But for the last 20, 30 years, he refused to be intimidated by fear.

“It’s a belief, I think, that they believed that he could get away with it. They could essentially buy our freedom, buy us into not voicing out our beliefs. I mean, my father always had this great line Hong Kong is so poor, all they had was his money.

“He always knew that without freedom, these fundamental freedoms, none of it really mattered.

“I haven’t been back because I campaigned. Even doing something like this, for example, I would be arrested.

“This is me criticising the Hong Kong government. It could be seen as being something that’s seditious.

“It’s wide ranging. It’s International. No matter where you do, it’s still something that you could be arrested for. I could be seen as colluding with foreign forces, even though I’m British and this is my own country.

“It’s absolute destruction. I mean, there’s no longer a rule of law if you could arbitrarily sentence someone that you don’t like to however long you want.

“I can only be hopeful at this point. Everybody around the world sees the cruelty of it. A lot of people are inspired by my father’s story. They see this man who’s given everything he asked for his beliefs and so I can only hold that hope that China and Hong Kong will not only do the right thing, but do the rational thing and release my father.”