My Take | Thank Hong Kong localists for the joint checkpoint

During the ceremony for the cross-border express rail opening in West Kowloon, the chief executive thanked Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee for helping to pass the joint checkpoint bill quickly in the Legislative Council.

Actually, they both had radical localists Yau Wai-ching and Sixtus Baggio Leung Chung-hang to thank.

Without those two foolish secessionists, the opposition would still have retained its veto power in Legco and been able to declare war on the controversial checkpoint arrangement that enables mainland officers to operate within the rail terminus.

That had been its intention all along. But then, after losing six seats to disqualification and therefore its veto power, it watched helplessly as the government-friendly camp rewrote the Legco rules book that greatly reduced its scope for filibustering and delaying bills.

Moreover, Yau and Leung made such a farce of their Legco’s oath-taking it was hard for the public to have much sympathy for them. Their disqualification, in turn, became the legal playbook to kick out four other localist lawmakers for their own oath-taking fiasco.