Grantham convinced London to scrap all plans for political reform on the basis that it did not "interest the British electorate". Later, when confronted by the Hong Kong public, he blamed London.[12] All major democratic reforms for Hong Kong were dropped by British Cabinet decision. In October 1952, the British Colonial Secretary Oliver Lyttelton announced that the time was "inopportune for...constitutional changes of a major character".[16]

Of course, British has its own interests, while China also has its own interests. In the end, HK is part of China, and it should be returned to China fully. If British consider Hong Kong's freedom is more important, maybe they should went to war with China instead.

Those numbers in brackets look like citations.[12, 16] What are you citing?

The phrase "All major democratic reforms for Hong Kong were dropped by British Cabinet decision." does not lead to any credible source, only some mentions on a small number of websites or Reddit.

Compare the Google searches:

- "the colonial governors who ran Hong Kong repeatedly sought to introduce popular elections but abandoned those efforts in the face of pressure by Communist Party leaders in Beijing."

  [1] leads to the New York Times article, which I can follow its references.

- "All major democratic reforms for Hong Kong were dropped by British Cabinet decision."

  [2] does not lead to any credible source. In fact, some of the sites appear to be disinformation campaigns (don’t take my words, judge for yourself).

[1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22the+colonial+governors+wh...

[2]: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22All+major+democratic+refo...