'New electoral law takes Hong Kong back 20 years'

Sweeping changes to Hong Kong's electoral rules were "not a good sign" and have turned democratic progress "back to square one", Lo Kin-hei of the Democratic Party said.

"These kind of changes... made today is turning Hong Kong back for 20-odd years.

"In the past 20 years there was some sort of progress in the democratic movement in Hong Kong. Elections have been getting more and more open in the past 20 years," he told BBC World News.

The new changes will see the number of directly elected parliamentary seats almost halved and prospective MP’s will first be vetted by a pro-Beijing committee to ensure their loyalty to the mainland.

Hong Kong's leader, Carrie Lam, has said the vetting committee will not screen out people based on their political views and there was not a “one-size-fits-all” way of doing democracy.