When Empire Comes Home: What Hong Kong and Brexit Tell Us About Who We Think We Are

Here's something that's been nagging at me: in 1997, Britain handed Hong Kong back to China. In 2016, Britain voted to leave the EU. Completely different events, right? But the more I look at the data, the more I realize both are fundamentally asking the same question: who gets to decide who "we" are?

The numbers on Hong Kong identity are striking. Before the handover, polls already showed most people there identified as "Hongkongese" rather than "Chinese." You'd think after 1997, as China's economy boomed and Hong Kong prospered, that might shift. It went the opposite direction. By 2015, people under 30 rated their Hong Kong identity at 7.9 out of 10, but their Chinese identity at just 4.9. Among 18 to 29 year olds in 2013, a staggering 84.3% identified exclusively as Hong Kong rather than Chinese.

Meanwhile in Britain, Eurobarometer surveys showed we were among the least likely in the EU to feel European. Only about 3.5% of British citizens described themselves primarily as European. We were in the club for four decades, but we never really felt like members.

What fascinates me about these parallel trajectories is this: in both cases, populations were supposed to integrate into larger political projects, one country two systems for Hong Kong, ever closer union for Britain, but the local identities intensified instead of dissolving.

Here's where the stories diverge in a way that matters. Hong Kong's identity crisis happened without a vote. Hongkongers were subjects of a negotiation between London and Beijing, not participants. Their sense of self evolved around an imposed settlement. When that settlement started visibly breaking down in the 2010s, with massive protests in 2014 and 2019, the only real option was literal exit.

And people took it. By June 2023, over 176,000 British National Overseas visas had been granted to Hong Kong residents, with about 123,800 already in the UK. These aren't economic migrants chasing opportunity. These are middle class, educated families who felt politically pushed out.

Brexit was the opposite mechanism. Whatever you think about the referendum itself, it was democratic participation. The identity crisis got expressed through the ballot box. But here's what's wild: post referendum research found that Leave and Remain identities became as strong as traditional party loyalty. We didn't just vote and move on. We fragmented into two tribes with fundamentally different worldviews about sovereignty, borders, and Britain's place in the world.

Now for the UK Asia angle that really gets me: Britain spent the Brexit campaign talking about Global Britain and taking back control, this whole narrative about post imperial confidence restored. Then immediately after leaving the EU, we opened one of the most generous migration schemes in modern British history, specifically for people from our former colony.

The British National Overseas scheme is genuinely anomalous. While immigration policy tightened across the board, we created a preferential route for potentially hundreds of thousands of Hong Kongers. Parliament explicitly framed it as "historical responsibility" and honoring the Sino British Joint Declaration. It's empire, but through the back door of a post Brexit immigration system supposedly about control.

So both stories are about empire coming home, just in mirror image. Hong Kong is a former colony being reabsorbed by a rising power, and the population's distinct identity is hardening against both old and new sovereigns. Britain is a former empire still figuring out what it actually is, caught between acknowledging post imperial reality through European integration and trying to resurrect some version of independent global status.

The economic implications here aren't abstract. Identity shapes trade policy, migration flows, and investment decisions. When populations feel their identity is under threat, they make radically different choices about openness and integration. Vietnam's economic transformation succeeded partly because identity and development policy aligned. Can the same happen when identity is contested?

What I'm genuinely curious about: are these transition periods before new, stable identities take shape? Or are we watching the opening act of longer term political instability in both Britain and Hong Kong?

And here's the question I keep coming back to: what does it mean that Britain's post Brexit immigration policy is being defined, in meaningful part, by obligations to a colonial past we're supposedly moving beyond?