This is the inconvenient truth. The UK government signed an internationally binding treaty but did not put in sanctioning mechanisms for when the agreement is breached. SNP leader Jim Sillars actually warned Thatcher that the 1984 Sino-British JD would be unenforceable /1 https://twitter.com/oiliveHK/status/1266014388391047174">https://twitter.com/oiliveHK/...
"The UK government was warned in 1989 that after the handover it would be & #39;impotent& #39; and & #39;without remedy& #39; if China breached the then-recently-signed Joint Declaration on Hong Kong’s future, declassified documents have shown." /2 https://hongkongfp.com/2017/07/22/declassified-files-uk-warned-1989-impotent-hong-kong-deal-breached-handover/">https://hongkongfp.com/2017/07/2...