UK Opposition leader Kemi Badenoch demands prisoner release before Xi talks, rejects CHOGM reparations

The UK Opposition leader Kemi Badenoch has set a price for her terms in dealing with China if she becomes prime minister, setting out what would constitute one of the toughest positions on dealing with the CCP in the Five Eyes.

Ms Badenoch said she would not meet Chinese President Xi Jinping unless he freed British citizens locked up in China.

And she smacked down Commonwealth calls for reparations over colonial-era slavery, saying it would make the UK look weak to China, which would only encourage more countries to extract money from Britain while getting off scot-free for its own record.

Her position was hailed by human rights campaigners who said it was a relief to see a public break with the weak direction set by the Albanese Government since they won power in 2022.

Ms Badenoch was addressing a mini-rally attended by The Nightly aboard HMS Wellington on the River Thames overlooking the Houses of Parliament, saying the historical warship was an example of when Britain invested in its navy.

Surrounded by Conservative Party supporters holding up signs that said: “Britain’s Security Before Benefits” and “Cut Welfare, Fund Defence,” she said she would take the hard choices being shirked by the current Labour Government and those past, including the previous Tory government of which she was part.

“China is certainly an economic threat to this country,” Ms Badenoch said.

“I’m not saying we need to go to war with China; but what I’m saying is that what they want is economic dominance and the more dominant they are, then the more susceptible we are to coercion.

“So if I’m prime minister of this country and I get an invite, depending on what China has been doing recently — I might go. But not when it is holding dissidents, British citizens, in its prisons and not releasing them.

“I would be going and getting those people released. Keir Starmer went to China and got humiliated, got absolutely nothing; that would not be happening to me.”

She said her stance contrasted with the Labour Government, which is considering offering an apology to Caribbean countries over slavery, which is seen by its critics as a first step towards being forced to pay reparations.

She disputed the idea that it could enhance Western influence in non-aligned countries where China is also vying for dominance.

“If Commonwealth countries think China is their friend and is coming along to help, then they’re going to be in for a huge shock,” she said.

“There is slavery happening today; they’re not talking about that.”

Human rights campaigners and several governments, including the United States, accuse the Chinese Communist Party of locking up more than one million Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province, where many are put into forced labour camps.

The US, UK Parliament, Canadian Parliament and several European parliaments have declared the CCP’s repression of the Uyghurs a genocide.

Under Xi Jinping, the CCP has also increased its surveillance and crackdowns on freedoms, especially in Hong Kong, where it violated its promise to allow Hong Kongers to live with greater freedoms after the territory was handed back by the British in 1997.

As part of its crackdown via a national security law that forced democracy campaigners, lawyers and parliamentarians to flee, it detained media publisher and Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai.

The 78-year-old British citizen was sentenced to 20 years’ jail in 2020 and remains in solitary confinement. His case has earned high-profile backing in the UK and worldwide, including from US President Donald Trump, who confirmed he raised Mr Lai’s detention with Xi.

UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham asked Mr Trump to advocate for Mr Lai and Mr Burnham’s predecessor Keir Starmer also raised Lai’s case with Xi during their meeting in Beijing.

But Xi has not budged, and Mr Lai remains behind bars.

David Green, head of UK communications at the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, said: “Kemi Badenoch showed serious strength today by drawing a red line and saying, ‘This is what we need from you in Beijing — free our citizen, Jimmy Lai, or we just can’t do business’.

“She’s absolutely right. All future ministerial engagements with Hong Kong and Beijing should be predicated on securing Jimmy Lai’s release — a wrongfully imprisoned British citizen whose only crime was asking the Chinese Communist Party to honour the commitments it made in the Sino-British Declaration.

“It’s the leadership based on British values that Hong Kongers have been crying out for and that Downing Street has repeatedly failed to deliver. We commend her for it.”

Luke de Pulford from the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, which convenes cross-party parliamentarians from more than 40 legislatures worldwide, including all the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing countries, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the United States, said it was a major breakthrough.

“It’s a huge relief to see that at least one major UK politician has decided to depart from the China policy consensus set by the current Australian Government,” he said.

“The recent direction of travel has lost the Five Eyes countries precious time, and their dependency worsens and resilience further diminishes.”

UK Labour has said it fashioned its China policy based on Australian Labor’s approach. Both governments routinely pledge that they will co-operate with Beijing where they can and disagree when they must.

Ms Badenoch sought to contrast her pledge to fund defence and provide the public with the economic, fiscal and social resilience required to meet the geopolitical tensions with Mr Burnham’s actions at the CHOGM summit in Antigua.

She said the discussion of reparations, which Mr Burnham and Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband had put on the table by entertaining an offer of an apology, was a waste of time.

Overnight, King Charles III opened the CHOGM summit, which Anthony Albanese is attending and reiterated the Palace’s “sorrow” over slavery.

“As I have said before, that shameful chapter of history is one that fills my heart with horror and my soul with the most profound personal sorrow,” the King said.

“And yet history also teaches us that evil need not have the last word; that character and courage can combine to overcome the most monstrous injustice, as they did with the determination to end international trade in enslaved people, in which the Royal Navy played such a leading role.”

Meeting King Charles onboard Australian billionaire Andrew Forrest’s green ship, Mr Albanese told the King that he was attending CHOGM because His Majesty had requested his attendance.

“They said at my press conference today: ‘Why are you here?’” Mr Albanese told the King.

“Because His Majesty invited me.”

“Oh God, it’s all my fault, oh no!” the King responded.

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