The Home Office imposes restrictions on international artists and academics visiting the UK for talks, temporary exhibitions, concerts or artists’ residencies. Visitors have to submit to a series of arduous and expensive proceedures to get their visa, and then more bureaucratic controls when they are in the UK. Many concerts and residencies have been cancelled.
The Manifesto Club works in alliance with artists, musicians, academics and students to oppose these suspicious restrictions – and to affirm the vital contribution made by global artists and scholars to UK cultural and intellectual life.
LATEST: This campaign won major concessions and a change in UK visa rules. See our briefing on the changes.
A new Manifesto Club report documents how red-tape visa controls have damaged UK academic life. The report, Students Under Watch, by Valerie Hartwich, shows how visa rules have led to a massive extension of surveillance on campus, and a humiliating and hostile…
A speech by Nicholas Trench, Earl of Clancarty in the House of Lords, about the effect of the UK’s points-based visa system on visiting artists. This talk was given at the Border Walk event, in August. ‘First I would like to say thank you very much indeed to Rocca, Claudia and Manick for inviting me to this event. May I begin by saying something about myself and my own involvement in this campaign. My name is Nick Trench. I am an artist – and I am also a parliamentarian. I sit in the House of Lords as a crossbencher, which means I…
The Manifesto Club’s Visiting Artist Campaign partnered the discussion, ‘Without Borders’, in August. A podcast of the discussion can be downloaded here:
Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera – a campaigner for gay rights who faces daily discrimination in her home country of Uganda – has been a refused a visa to enter the UK. She was due to speak at the Foyle Pride Festival in Derry next week. This freedom campaigner is the latest victim of the UK’s points-based visa system, which puts a burdensome series of barriers in the way of people trying to visit the UK on temporary visits – whether to give a talk or go to a conference. The UK was the only country to deny Nabagesera a visa. Apparently there were…
Supporters of the Manifesto Club’s Visiting Artist campaign were among signatories to an English-PEN-led letter to the Daily Telegraph today, calling for a reform of the points-based visa system. SIR – Since its introduction in 2008, it has become clear that the points-based visa system, introduced to manage migration to the United Kingdom, is inappropriate for short-term visits by artists. Writers and performers who have long been welcomed by Britain now find that they are required to undergo a visa application process that is needlessly bureaucratic and intrusive. Non-European Union artists wishing to enter the country have been treated poorly, either through…
Important video about tango dancers barred from the UK, as a result of the suspicious and bureaucratic points-based visa system…
The Points-Based Immigration System (PBIS) requires arts and academic institutions to monitor international visitors throughout the duration of their stay. UKBA officials have carried out raids and spot-checks on campuses, and checked up on artists to ensure they are not making art…
The Manifesto Club, with English PEN, coordinated a letter to the Times today – taking on the points-based visa system, against which we have a long-running campaign. Signatories include Antony Gormley, Baroness Helena Kennedy, and poet Andrew Motion. Read the letter here.
The Manifesto Club and English PEN delivering our 10,000-strong petition against points-based visa rules to 10 Downing Street, 2pm 17 March 2010.
On 17 March 2010, we submitted the Manifesto Club petition against the points-based visa system to 10 Downing Street – with over 10,000 signatures, including artists and writers such as Antony Gormley, Jeremy Deller, Maureen Duffy and Anne Fine. To mark the…
As we’ve highlighted in our Visiting Artists Campaign, the Home Office’s new points-based visa system has meant thousands of international students unable to start their courses on time, cancelled concerts and lecture series, and the growth of suspicion and surveillance on campus.…
As the Home Office announces the tightening of the points-based visa system for international students, a new Manifesto Club report shows that the system has already barred thousands of genuine students from the UK. The points-based visa system (rolled out in March 2009)…