Letter to my representatives: Draconian border control

Dear Ross Grant, Lynn Moore and Inderjit Gugnani,

I recently read this piece from last year about an American conference speaker's experience trying to travel to this country to give a speech in Oxford:

https://medium.com/@rachelnabors/wtfuk-73009d5623b4

This has added to a growing number of worrying accounts I've heard and read about experiences at UK borders and with UK visa and immigration officials.

I believe the way we as a country treat travellers (who are therefore temporarily beyond normal state protections) is a really important indication of our genuine commitment to human rights and basic human decency. And right now, by this measure, we in the UK are scoring very poorly. Our borders are also the first and last impression that visitors to this country get of the UK - and again by that count, we are hardly encouraging international cooperation and respect in the way that we should be.

On June 8th, one of the key areas influencing which candidate I vote for will be their genuine support for border reform - to treat all visitors to our country of all backgrounds, beliefs and skin colours with genuine respect and human decency; to inform them of their rights at the border; to provide them with quality legal representation during disputes and to reduce the powers of individual border agents to restrict their travel or freedoms.

Please reassure me that you feel as I do that this is an important issue that needs urgently addressing, and do your best to represent my views as my representative in parliament.

Yours sincerely,
Robin Winslow Morris