Ip was born in Hong Kong on 8 November 1951 to a driver father. His father came from Guangzhou before the Communist Party of China took over. He studied at the Hon Wah College, a leftist pro-Communist school in the Western District. He later graduated from the South China Normal University with a degree in Bachelor of Art in Geography. After he graduated, he returned to the Hon Wah College as a teacher where he taught for 20 years.
He first ran for office in the 1991 District Board elections, for the Central and Western District Board in the Kennedy Town West & Mount Davis. He was elected with incumbent Chan Tak-chor, receiving 2,942 votes and defeating incumbent Wong Sui-lai of the pro-democraticUnited Democrats of Hong Kong (UDHK).
After he lost his District Council seat in 2003, he was not eligible to run for the constituency in the 2004 Legislative Council election. In the same year, he was awarded the Gold Bauhinia Star (GBS) by the government.
He returned to the Legislative Council through the same constituency in 2008 and has held the seat since then. After retiring from the District Council in 2015, he would also step down in the upcoming 2016 Legislative Council election.
As a Legislative Councillors, Ip held many other public positions, including on the Board of directors of the Urban Renewal Authority.[6]
He stepped down from the Legislative Council in 2016 and was succeeded by Lau Kwok-fan.
2015 electoral reform walkout
According to a chat record leaked to the South China Morning Post,[7] Ip, as the convenor of the DAB caucus and the coordinator of the pro-Beijing camp, was responsible together with the Legislative Council PresidentJasper Tsang Yok-sing for the walk-out that resulted in a humiliating defeat of the pro-Beijing parties in the electoral reform voting at the Legislative Council in July 2015.
In February 2021, Ip said that he supported reforms to the election system in Hong Kong proposed by the NPCSC, and that the 117 seats district councillors hold in the chief executive election committee are held by those who "advocate mutual destruction for Hong Kong."[9] In response, Ma Ngok from Chinese University said that doing so would eliminate public participation in choosing the chief executive.[10]
On 5 January 2022, Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced new warnings and restrictions against social gathering due to potential COVID-19 outbreaks.[11] One day later, it was discovered that Caspar Tsui attended a birthday party hosted by Witman Hung Wai-man, with 222 guests.[12][13][14] At least one guest tested positive with COVID-19, causing many guests to be quarantined.[14] Ip, several times, later called on Carrie Lam to be lenient towards Tsui.[15]
In February 2022, after the Witman Hung birthday party controversy, Ng defended Hung and said that "I don’t think we need to discuss punishing Hung as he did not cause disrepute to the NPC".[16]
^Wong, Hermina (17 March 2016). "Breaking: CY Leung appoints Ip Kwok-him to Executive Council following Starry Lee's resignation". Hong Kong Free Press.