Why won’t David Lammy help Jimmy Lai?

As I write, the Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, is flying to China. So I am only guessing when I say that I expect he will ‘raise’ the case of Jimmy Lai, the newspaper publisher, businessman and Democratic party supporter, a British citizen. Mr Lai has now been imprisoned in Hong Kong for four years with his numerous trials not yet completed. ‘Raise’, yes, but not as in ‘do anything about’ the situation. So far, the best the Foreign Office has done is to ‘request consular access’ to Mr Lai. China has refused this on the grounds that it does not recognise dual citizenship (which is irrelevant since Mr Lai has never been anything other than British) and in defiance of the Anglo-Hong Kong Agreement, which came into force with the handover to China in 1997 and was contracted to last 50 years. Mr Lai is accused of breaking the infamous National Security law, fraud and unlawful assembly.