British National (Overseas) Hongkongers' Identity and the Role of Cantonese

'BN(O) Hong Kong immigrants: Suspicion and isolation between Mandarin-speaking Chinese and Cantonese community' (Lam, 2022). This news title captures the inter-group political conflict between Hongkongers who recently migrated to the UK with a British National (Overseas) visa and other ethnic Chinese settlers. 144,500 BN(O) Hongkongers have moved to the UK since the visa scheme launched in January 2021 (Lee, 2023). The growing population of BN(O) Hongkongers, who have a strong group identity, forecasts more conflicts like this (e.g. Lam, 2022; Lu, 2021; Wintour, 2022). This project will explore the identity construction of BN(O) Hongkongers and how Cantonese, a predominant language in Hong Kong (Census and Statistics Department, 2022)1, plays a role in the process, especially how it mobilises the politicised binary of Cantonese-speaking-Hongkongers/Mandarin-speaking-mainlanders. Findings will shed scholarly light on the characteristics of BN(O) Hongkongers. This project will contribute to the scholarship and policymaking related to intra/inter-ethnic relations, a prominent social issue in the UK (e.g. Khan and Brown, 2022).