Comment by michaelbuckbee
10 years ago
Stepping slightly back from this particular horrible experience, I don't understand _why_ this particular set of institutional rules are in place.
Was there a thought that foreign speakers who were subsidized by foreign governments were inciting rebellion?
Are there tax issues?
Was this some big money laundering loophole or something?
Is there a concern that people were using this as figleaf to immigrate illegally?
Foreign paid speakers fall, by definition of the words into immigrants who are entering the country in order to work (paid employment). The law does not special-case people who are going to leave immediately afterwards.
This is, sadly, not a new problem. It's been a problem for touring musicians for decades.
Pretty much any country has separate entry rules for people travelling for leisure or work.
She was travelling for work. She, and the conference, failed to get good enough legal advice about the travel requirements.
Here' the page she links to: https://www.gov.uk/check-uk-visa/y/usa/work/six_months_or_le...
Read that and tell me you'd travel how she did without getting more advice.
> If you’re invited as an expert
> You can stay in the UK for up to 1 month without a visa, but you can only be paid to do certain things, eg:
> give guest lectures at a higher education institution
> provide advocacy in legal proceedings
> take part in arts, entertainment or sporting activities
> Check the full list of what you can be paid to do - it’s the same as what you can do on a Permitted Paid Engagement visa.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/visit-guidance
From her screenshot (with pretty different wording) and the footer ("Last updated: 9 June 2016") it's clear that that page has substantially changed since, which is unfortunate (although definitely clearer now!).
It's essentially because it's a very special case of coming into the country for paid work (albeit very temporary!). As such, it falls, by default, into the laws regarding temporary work.
generally speaking, countries don't want you to be in them and be paid by a foreign company.
Think about it, if you're in the UK but being "paid" by a German company, are you really paying the right kind of taxes? What's to stop every major corp from having the Cayman Islands branch hire you.
Usually people working for foreign corps end up actually being contractors (and paying self-employment taxes or whatnot).
Being paid by a company in any country is equally not OK. It seems the Germany-part is just a red herring/the officer being a dick (it seems they could have easily rejected her straight at the desk - you're here to work, you don't have the visa, done, have a nice flight back, next please).
> it seems they could have easily rejected her straight at the desk - you're here to work, you don't have the visa, done, have a nice flight back, next please
They can't actually do that, any refusal has to be signed off by the duty head of the port (IIRC; I presume each terminal at LHR has a separate one!), as far as I'm aware.
generally speaking, countries don't want you to be in them and be paid by a foreign company.
Curiously, the US prefers this for temporary visitors. If you are being paid by a company outside the US to speak at a US conference, it's fine, but you are not allowed to be paid by a "US source". I guess the theory is being paid by a non-US source means you're "on business" rather than "working in the US".
That's not an immigration matter, though. As far as I'm aware, taxation policy isn't really something that comes into play with UK immigration.
The rules are in place because of the deeply-ingrained xenophobia gripping the UK. Trying to find logical reason behind the rules won't get you anywhere!
>deeply-ingrained xenophobia gripping the UK
so ingrained that people from all over the world live in the UK.