6 ms·

This is nothing new, and the same thing happened to this American going to a conference in Europe in 2016: https://medium.com/@rachelnabors/wtfuk-73009d5623b4#

• NoirDesir 10y ago
  UK is not Europe.
  • Flimm 10y ago
    The UK is part of the continent of Europe. It's also still a member of the EU for the time being.
    • Beltiras 10y ago
      The UK is actually an island off the continent of Europe. If we are being pedantic. It may belong to Europe culturally in some respects but geographically, it does not.
      • richrichardsson 10y ago
        Geologically however : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Plate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Plate
  • cr1895 10y ago
    Yes, it most definitely is part of Europe, and it is currently still part of the European Union too.
    • NoirDesir 10y ago
      Member of the European Union, not member of the Schengen Area... UK has always been whimsical and not reflecting the "European" values... thus, UK is not Europe. They're free to run things the way they like, but please don't keep telling that UK is Europe... especially after they chose and got the Brexit... not a single true european will endorse its mistakes.
      • throwaway2048 10y ago
        the soviet union and eastern block were europe too, stop creating absurd distinctions.
        • jacquesm 10y ago
          Europe -> the EU, not Europe, the landmass.
          • throwaway2048 10y ago
            The EU is the EU, europe already has a definition, trying to conflate it with the European Union for ideological reasons is stupid.
          • ng12 10y ago
            I would never in my life read the word Europe and think of the EU first.
            • jacquesm 10y ago
              And when you hear 'America' you never think of the USA either?
              • ng12 10y ago
                The two are not equivalent. America is shorthand for the United States of. Mexico is short for Estados Unidos Mexicanos. Europe is a geographically defined continent. If I were in Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Serbia, Macedonia, or the Ukraine would it not be appropriate to say I was in Europe?
                • cr1895 10y ago
                  Well technically I think it depends on which side of Iceland you're standing. To the west you're on the North American plate and to the east it's the Eurasian plate.
    • jacquesm 10y ago
      The UK is a pain for Europeans to get into. It's trying very hard to be USA light when it comes to immigration.
      • peteretep 10y ago
        With an EU passport, one uses the same queues as Brits to get into the country.
        • jacquesm 10y ago
          Yes, and it takes forever. At least it did the last time I came to the UK (Dec 2015). The line started well into the hallway, a hundred meters or so before the counter.
          • peteretep 10y ago
            So you think it's a pain for Europeans to get into the UK because they're treated like UK citizens.
            • jacquesm 10y ago
              No, it's a pain for everybody and I'm not a masochist. What the UK wants to do to its own citizens is their problem, they can vote to change it.
      • cr1895 10y ago
        This has everything to do with the UK not being in the Schengen area, and nothing to do with it being in the EU or Europe at large.
  • mercer 10y ago
    To you and my sibling posts: could you both elaborate? I'm inclined to agree that the UK differs from mainland Europe in a number of ways. I can't judge if this is the case for border control, but it wouldn't surprise. I'd really like to hear both sides elaborate rather than the 'yes', 'but no' comments so far.
• neves 10y ago
  The problem isn't really about influent academics traveling to Europe or USA. Their problems will be solved soon and generate some indignant news articles. To quote the article: "This incident caused me some discomfort, difficult to deny. However, I can not help but think of all those who suffer these humiliations and legal violence without the protections I have been able to enjoy."
• yread 10y ago
  Scary story. But read this one from the comments: >I’m not going to apologise. I’ve been fighting this brutal nonsense since I was an MP’s assistant in the late 1980s. At the time the system was that a Member of Parliament could intervene on any deportation and by contacting the Home Office get it stopped until any questionable aspects were resolved. One evening I was the last to leave the office when a call came through from Heathrow. Normally I left the immigration stops to the more experienced caseworkers, however there was nobody but me available. > So I listened to a tearful South African chap explaining that he had flown to the UK to be at the wedding of his sole surviving relative, his sister, the following day. All his papers were in order, but the immigration people had made one attempt to contact his sister and on not having the phone answered (on the afternoon before her wedding) had told him he was to be deported to South Africa. I got out the instructions on handling such cases and having taken the chap’s number and all the relevant details, and instructed him to tell the immigration people that Stuart Holland MP’s office were in the process of getting the Home Office to put a stop on his deportation. I then called the Home Office and got them to agree to do their part of the business. > Next I rang Heathrow to talk to the South African chap. I was told it was too late he was already on a plane to Luxemburg. I called the Home Office again and asked them to forward a further stop to Luxemburg. > Again they agreed to do do. By now the senior caseworker had got home so I was able to get her to take over. > I was distressed to learn from her that whilst the authorities in Luxemburg had received instructions from the UK Home Office to stop the deportation, they had ignored it and placed him on a flight back to South Africa anyway. Apparently the Home Office had also agreed to apologise “for the inconvenience” and if he wanted to come to the UK on the next available flight they would “ensure” that he would be able to enter the country. Since he had by this time already missed the wedding, and for the next couple of weeks his sister would be abroad on honeymoon, he naturally turned down this “kind offer”. I cried. > It has not improved since then. It is now far worse.
  • jacquesm 10y ago
    Give small people a little bit of power and the results are very predictable. Real lives > paper, that's the bit that people in uniform the world over seem to instantly forget the moment they put on their work clothes in the morning. I've seen so many examples of this in my life by now that it hardly surprises me any more but I still absolutely boil at it every time I see another instance.