HK First is a

localist Localism is a range of political philosophies which prioritize the local. Generally, localism supports local production and Local purchasing, consumption of goods, local control of government, and promotion of local history, local culture and lo ...

political party in Hong Kong. It had one representative in the

Legislative Council of Hong Kong The Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, colloquially known as LegCo, is the Unicameralism, unicameral legislature of Hong Kong. It sits under People's Republic of China, China's "one country, two systems" c ...

Claudia Mo Claudia Mo Man-ching (born 18 January 1957) is a Hong Kong journalist and politician, a member of the pan-democracy camp. She represented the Kowloon West geographical constituency, until November 2020 when she resigned along other pro-demo ...

, a former pan-democratic

Civic Party The Civic Party (CP) was a pro-democracy camp, pro-democracy liberalism in Hong Kong, liberal political party from March 2006 to May 2023 in Hong Kong. The party was formed in 2006 on the basis of the Article 45 Concern Group, Basic Law Ar ...

member. It was founded in 2013 by two pro-democracy legislators, Claudia Mo and Gary Fan, to "defend the city's culture from 'mainlandisation'".

History

The group was formed on 31 January 2013 by two pan-democratic legislators,

of the

and Gary Fan of the Neo Democrats, who sympathised with the growing localist sentiment in Hong Kong. It claims to "help safeguard not only Hong Kong's high degree of autonomy, but also its lifestyle as guaranteed unchanged for 50 years under

one country, two systems "One country, two systems" is a constitutional principle of the People's Republic of China (PRC) describing the governance of the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau. Deng Xiaoping developed the one country, two systems ...

and stipulated in the

Basic Law A basic law is either a codified constitution, or in countries with uncodified constitutions, a law designed to have the effect of a constitution. The term ''basic law'' is used in some places as an alternative to "constitution" and may be inte ...

". Gary Fan ran in the 2012 Legislative Council election on a "moderate" localist platform in

New Territories East New Territories East is the eastern part of New Territories, covering North District, Hong Kong, North, Tai Po District, Tai Po, Sha Tin District, Sha Tin, and Sai Kung District. History All districts except Sai Kung District have been connected ...

while Claudia Mo ran in Kowloon West with the slogan of "against mainlandisation". The two ran again in the 2016 Legislative Council election, in which Fan lost his New Territories East seat, leaving the group with only one representative. In November 2016, Mo announced her resignation from the Civic Party, citing her differences with the party on localism and other issues. She said she would continue serving in the legislature as an "independent democrat" under the label "HK First".

Political positions

Social policy

The group advocates for the protection of cultural aspects of the Hong Kong lifestyle, including the use of

traditional Chinese characters Traditional Chinese characters are a standard set of Chinese character forms used to written Chinese, write Chinese languages. In Taiwan, the set of traditional characters is regulated by the Ministry of Education (Taiwan), Ministry of Educat ...

Cantonese Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...

and traditional phonetic translation between English and Cantonese, which many localists deemed to be under threat from mainland China's

simplified Chinese Simplification, Simplify, or Simplified may refer to: Mathematics Simplification is the process of replacing a mathematical expression by an equivalent one that is simpler (usually shorter), according to a well-founded ordering. Examples include: ...

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...

and its phonetic translation.

Sovereignty

In contrast to many other localist organisations, the group does not advocate for Hong Kong independence.

Tourism and immigration

It also opposed the influx of mainland tourists, grey goods traders, Mainland schoolchildren who were seen as taken away the quota of the local students, panic-buying of baby formula and various social issues in related to Hong Kong–Mainland conflict. It opposed the government's Individual Visit Scheme to limit the number of mainland tourists. They co-sponsored a controversial ad which claimed that reducing immigration would help the people of Hong Kong to get to the bottom of the housing problem, while rejecting claims of bias or discrimination against mainlanders, despite condemnation from the Equal Opportunities Commission. Fan later introduced a motion on adhering to the need to "put Hong Kong people first" in formulating policies, but the motion was ultimately defeated.

Representatives

The party currently has no elected representatives.

References

External links

* {{Hong Kong political parties 2013 establishments in Hong Kong Liberal parties in Hong Kong Localist parties in Hong Kong Political parties established in 2013 Political parties in Hong Kong Pro-democracy camp (Hong Kong)