So much for compromise: Hong Kong electoral reform will only benefit one-party state

Before the government unveiled its plans for constitutional reform, a case could have been made for the virtues of compromise and negotiation.

It was not much of a case but as hope springs eternal, well-meaning folks maintained the fantasy that the government was sincere in bringing forward a proposal to pave the way for something resembling a democratic election.

Well, now we know. Not only has there not been the smallest attempt to turn this new chief executive election plan into something more than an unrepresentative version of universal suffrage but this proposal, devised by a non-elected "people's" committee, quite unsurprisingly turns out to be a version of democracy to meet the needs of a one-party state.

Apologies are therefore in order from those who claimed that this would be a step towards the realisation of a genuine system for universal suffrage.

Hardline anti-democrats have no need to apologise because they never had any intention of allowing the people to have a genuine choice. Yet, in the same breath, they are calling on the people to join a campaign that will encourage the democrats to vote for a system designed to deprive the broad mass of the public of the right to choose who will govern them.

The anti-democrats talk loudly and often of the need for compromise but their version of compromise means: you compromise - we need do nothing of the kind. Meanwhile, you can still hear bleating from the so-called "pragmatists" who claim that something is better than nothing, indeed the clarion call for Hong Kong to accept second best seems to be their best argument.

Who now can possibly believe that this is stage one of a process headed towards the blue skies of genuine democracy?