More than 3,000 people staged a protest outside the Chinese Embassy in London last night to show solidarity with the pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong.

They called for Beijing to back down on its plans to vet candidates in local elections in the former British colony, a move that has seen tens of thousands of people occupying a square in the territory's main island since Sunday.

Many people in London, including former Hong Kong residents, last night held aloft umbrellas, which have symbolised the campaign, and placards expressing solidarity with the students thousands of miles away.

Lord Patten, who governed Hong Kong under British rule, backed their actions. He said: "The suggestion that all this has been stirred up by outside agitators is a slur on all these people in Hong Kong, many of them very young, who are standing up for what they were promised (when the British left)."