Editing Allen Lee (section)

===Senior member and Liberal Party chairman===
From 1988 to 1991, Lee was the [[Senior Unofficial Member|Senior Member]] of the Legislative Council, succeeding retiring Dame [[Lydia Dunn]]. After the [[Tiananmen Square massacre]] in June 1989, Lee joined the liberals to launch the Hong Kong People Saving Hong Kong campaign to press Britain to open its doors to all its colonial subjects here and grant them full British passports before the colony is handed back to China in 1997.<ref>{{cite news|title=Hong Kong to Push for Rights as Britons|first=Barbara|last=Basler|newspaper=The New York Times|date=21 December 1989|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/21/world/hong-kong-to-push-for-rights-as-britons.html}}</ref> He and the UMELCO also made concession to the liberals, to agree on a compromised model of a more democratic political system after 1997 in the drafting of the [[Hong Kong Basic Law]].{{cn|date=July 2024}}

In the wake of the landslide victory of the liberal forces led by the [[United Democrats of Hong Kong]] (UDHK) in the [[1991 Hong Kong legislative election|first ever direct election]] of the Legislative Council in 1991, Lee formed the [[Co-operative Resources Centre]] (CRC), a conservative parliamentary group with other appointed and indirectly elected members from the business sectors. He subsequently resigned as Senior Member among accusation of conflict of roles. The CRC later transformed into the [[Liberal Party (Hong Kong)|Liberal Party]] in 1993, where he was the founding chairman.{{cn|date=July 2024}}

In 1992, he resigned from the Executive Council with other unofficial members after Governor [[Chris Patten]] took office. He soon found himself aligned with the Beijing government in opposition to Patten's [[1994 Hong Kong electoral reform|reform proposals]] which largely expanded the electorates for the [[1995 Hong Kong legislative election|1995 Legislative Council election]]. He sought to resolve the Sino-Hong Kong confrontation through negotiations. Allen Lee's Liberal Party and its allies tried to amend the Patten proposals and was backed by [[Lu Ping]], Director of the [[Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office]]. However, with the support of the [[Pro-democracy camp in Hong Kong|pro-democracy camp]], Patten's proposals were narrowly passed. For this event, [[Jonathan Dimbleby]] described him as a "weather vane" in his book ''The Last Governor''.{{cn|date=July 2024}}

In the 1995 Legislative Council election, Lee ran in the [[New Territories East (constituency)#New Territories North-east|New Territories North-east]]. He returned to the Legislative Council by receiving 15,216 votes, 34.82% of the ballots, gaining the only seat for the Liberal Party and becoming the sole conservative candidate to be directly elected. He became closer to the Beijing authorities, being appointed as [[Hong Kong Affairs Adviser]], member of the [[Preparatory Committee for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region|Preparatory Committee]] and became member of the [[Provisional Legislative Council]] (PLC), a provisional legislature installed by Beijing countering the 1995 elected colonial legislature. He was also made a delegate of the Chinese national legislature, the [[National People's Congress]] (NPC) in late 1997.{{cn|date=July 2024}}

In 1998, Lee ran in [[New Territories East (constituency)|New Territories East]] in the [[1998 Hong Kong legislative election|first Legislative Council election]] after the [[handover of Hong Kong]] but was narrowly beaten by pro-democratic candidate [[Cyd Ho]], receiving 33,858 votes, 10.25% of the ballots. The defeat marked the end of his political career, as he announced his retirement as Liberal Party chairman after the election results. He stepped down in December 1998 and was succeeded by [[James Tien Pei-chun|James Tien]].{{cn|date=July 2024}}