Can the UK Poach Up to 3 Million Hongkongers?

British students are not even on par with Yankee ones. No wonder the UK needs people from fourth-ranked Hong Kong.

Everybody is an opportunist: When the PRC passed security [sic] legislation by force in Hong Kong following the latter's supposed inability to do so, the British saw an opportunity. Now, the United Kingdom is still fully engaged in that exercise of unmitigated self-harm called Brexit. However, it seems that even the grossly inept government of Boris Johnson (my spell-checker suggests "Boorish Johnson"; who am I to disagree?) recognizes something. Without brainy Estonians, Irish, Polish, etc. coming from elsewhere in the European Union to work in the UK, they need to import "human capital," i.e., smarts, from elsewhere.

The chart above shows test results of the PISA 2018 standardized examination conducted annually by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The EU countries I mentioned above stomp the UK. Pretty soon, their citizens can't come to the UK to work anymore--at least nowhere near as easily as when they all belonged to a single labor market. So, with discontent mounting in Hong Kong over months and months of anti-PRC protests and now this anti-terrorist legislation, why not offer 3 million Hongkongers documentation to come to the UK? Like the other greyed-out Asian regions and countries (they participate in the test but are not actually OECD members), Hong Kong smashes the UK in academic performance.

That said, there is a catch since it's not simply a case of being able to buy a UK passport:

In his op-ed published by the Post on June 3, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson made a heroic pledge that Britain would not walk away from its obligations to Hong Kong (“Britain to offer alternative for Hongkongers fearing for their way of life”).

Improving on the offer made by Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab on May 28 to extend the visa-free stay of BN(O) passport holders to 12 months, Johnson said that, if China imposes its national security law on Hong Kong, Britain would change its immigration rules to allow BN(O) passport holders to go to Britain for work, which would provide a pathway to citizenship.

Johnson’s offer is far less generous than it sounds. Under Britain’s immigration rules, a BN(O) passport holder admitted for work will need to satisfy the continuous ordinary residence requirement for five years (without being absent for more than six months in any year) to acquire “settled” status. A person who has acquired “settled” status will have to wait another 12 months before qualifying for British citizenship. During that time, that person needs to have the means to support himself or herself in Britain, and pay British tax.

Is a diminished post-Brexit Britain more attractive than a Hong Kong ravaged by years of civil unrest and now the loss of political freedoms? It seems to me that folks both places would want to have might want to go elsewhere instead given the chance. New Zealand, for instance, isn't a dumpster fire of a nation.