LONDON – A former British diplomat says a bizarre plan to relocate the entire population of Hong Kong to Northern Ireland was a joke between government officials.
David Snoxell says he’s shocked that anyone took his exchange of letters with fellow diplomat George Fergusson seriously.
Get breaking National news
Snoxell says the exchange – revealed Friday in a release of 1983 documents by the National Archives – “relieved some of the tension” at a time when Northern Ireland was wracked by insecurity following hunger strikes by republican prisoners.
READ MORE: Bizarre plan to ‘transplant’ Hong Kong to Northern Ireland uncovered
The idea also illustrated anxieties at the time about Hong Kong’s future. Then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had begun talks with China on the subject in 1982.
The letters showed the officials joking about resettling 5.5 million Hong Kong people in a newly built “city-state” between Coleraine and Londonderry.
- TD Bank moves to seize home of Russian-Canadian jailed for smuggling tech to Kremlin
- ‘Alarming trend’ of more international students claiming asylum: minister
- NBC, CBS polls show Harris gaining ground as election focus shifts to Trump
- After controversial directive, Quebec now says anglophones have right to English health services
Comments