A most undiplomatic row has engulfed one of Westminster’s most prestigious groups. The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association boasts 180 branches around the world, with the late Queen Elizabeth among its former patrons, with former Cabinet minister Maria Miller now serving as its chair.

But among those upcoming speakers due to address it in London include two controversial Hong Kong legislators in March. Whether one can call the current assembly of apparatchiks a ‘parliament’ is of course debatable. But one of the pair in question is Dominic Lee Tsz-king, who is especially objectionable, even by the standards of Hong King’s debased assembly. A onetime spokesman for ‘Ban Gay Marriage Hong Kong’, he claimed that the UK consulate in Hong Kong raising the rainbow flag was ‘foreign interference’, denied the Uighur genocide and celebrated the passage of the National Security Law.

Chung Ching Kwong of the Inter Parliamentary Alliance on China said:

It would be a profound insult to the hundreds of thousands of Hong Kongers like me forced out of their city to roll out the red carpet for two of our most hated lawmakers, who have celebrated the deterioration of Hong Kong’s freedoms with glee. I hope the CPA moves quickly on this and disinvites them now.

Twenty-five years on from the handover, a sad indictment of the joint agreement…