Slawomir Mentzen MP, one of the two leaders of Poland’s right-wing Confederation party, was detained for three hours at London Airport on suspicion that he may wish to participate in the “Unite the Kingdom” march being organised by UK far-right activist Tommy Robinson.
In fact the politician was on a private visit to see his wife and children and had no plans to attend any political meeting. The information British police had came from an undisclosed organisation monitoring the political Right, which requested that he be put on a list of persons unwelcome in the UK.
Both the chancellery of Polish President Karol Nawrocki and the foreign ministry intervened with the British authorities to ensure Mentzen’s speedy release.
“I was detained for over three hours at London Airport today,” Mentzen wrote on social media.
“Because the British were afraid that I would speak at some political event which I wasn’t even going to.”
After three hours, Mentzen was released and regained his passport, commenting on the situation as an example of “political censorship”.
He did not hide his frustration with the situation and called the UK a “failing state”.
“This failing state has no problem with being colonised by Hindus and Arabs but it does have a problem with the fact that I might have wanted to say something to someone here,” wrote Mentzen.
He accused the British of “preventative censorship”.
“They have preventive political censorship here. But only some views are censored,” he said.
“Great Britain is a totalitarian state. Probably, if I had planned to have a public meeting, they wouldn’t let me in. Someone thought that as a precautionary measure, I should be denied entry into the country because I may say something that shouldn’t be said here,” he wrote.
The Confederation Party leader contrasted the way immigration officers had treated him with the treatment afforded by the British to illegal migrants crossing the Channel.
“If I had just come here on a rubber dinghy with some Africans, I would have had no problem getting to Britain.
“But a politician from Poland who wanted to spend the weekend with his family in London and might have said something is to be stopped. Such wickedness has no place in Great Britain,” Mentzen quipped.
The reaction of the Polish authorities was swift.
“A scandal that requires immediate clarification by our state institutions.We will take such actions,” said one of Nawrocki’s aides, Adam Andruszkiewicz.
“I do not have to agree with Sławomir Mentzen on every issue, but he is a citizen of Poland and has full rights, including the right to his opinions. There can be no consent to treat a person like this just because of their views,” wrote the President’s chief foreign policy aide Marcin Przydacz, adding that he will be “intervening” with the British.
Poland’s Consul in Britain moved quickly in support of Mentzen with the politician thanking the authorities for their actions.
“I am pleased that our state sometimes acts on such matters, regardless of political differences,” Mentzen noted.
Mentzen, who leads the libertarian wing of his party, was the presidential candidate in last year’s election in which he came third, polling 15 per cent and his Confederation Party currently averages 12-14 per cent support in opinion surveys.
His political views would not be out of place in either the British Conservative Party or Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, the party that has just triumphed in May’s local elections in England.
He opposes mass migration “net zero” and supports asserting Polish sovereignty in the European Union, radical tax cuts and de-regulation.
Some in the main opposition Conservative (PiS) party accuse Mentzen of being prepared to have a future coalition with the centre-left Civic Coalition party led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Mentzen denies this, arguing that he simply refuses to weaken his negotiating position in future coalition negotiations.
Confederation has over the past two years seen the departure of one of its founders, Grzegorz Braun MEP, who left and set up a separate Polish Crown party, because he believes Confederation has moved towards the centre and no longer backs Poland leaving the EU or social conservative causes.
This is not the first time British immigration officers have stopped right-wing politicians, academics and commentators from entering the country.
In an incident two years ago, Polish conservative writer Rafal Ziemkiewicz was detained and deported on suspicion of wanting to address a public meeting when he was on the way to visit his daughter who was at that time studying at Oxford.
This happened because he was listed as undesirable following an intervention by a Polish organisation monitoring supposed right wing extremists.
It is likely that Mentzen was an early victim of the crackdown on right-wingers coming from Europe and suspected of wanting to attend right-wing Islamophobia activist Robinson’s march on May 16.
That crackdown was announced on May 11 by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. He said in a speech that his government “would not allow for the import of extremists into Britain wanting to spread hate on our streets” and that foreign right-wing groups trying to attend Robinson’s march would be prevented from entering the country.
The British Labour government appears to be using the Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) system for ideological screening to weed out critics of UK migration policies.
British authorities have reportedly cancelled the ETA of several prominent right-wing influencers, commentators,and politicians who were actually scheduled to speak at Robinson’s event, including Spanish anti-migration commentator Ada Lluch and US conservative Joey Mannarino
The most widely reported case dates back to January of this year when Dutch right-wing activist Eva Vlaardingerbroek had her ETA revoked after she criticised Starmer on X.
The official notice stated that her presence in the country “is not considered to be conducive to the public good”.
Colombian anti-Islam activist Valentina Gomez, who was due to speak at Robinson’s event, has alsos had her ETA revoked on the same grounds as the Dutch right-winger.
