Against Stupidity
The Cross-examination of Border Force Officer C. Lynton
AGAINST STUPIDITY
OR:
THE CROSS-EXAMINATION OF BORDER FORCE OFFICER C. LYNTON
A PETITION FOR REASON, ON THE OCCASION OF MR. J FALSTAFF’S EXILE FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM
BY THE MARQUIS
WITH TESTIMONY PROVIDED BY MR. J FALSTAFF
Quacumque libido est, incedo solus; percontor quanti holus ac far.
~
Let the reader understand that, in the interests of privacy, the names of all persons involved in the events detailed here below have been changed, though the real names have been retained in a paper copy of this letter sent to the Home Office.
I first fell in love with Adriaen Coorte’s competence in painting asparagus at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, when, amidst the other still lifes of half-peeled citrus fruits and rotting fish in deliberate disarray, I felt that I was looking at the most unabashedly ordered work of art in the world - unabashedly, because it refused to partake in the dirty little early modern joke of sprezzatura, its construction clarifying rather than concealing its artifice and intention. Seeing a twosome or foursome of Coortes together on a wall is enough to immediately convey the method he standardised for himself, with few exceptions: he would take a single subject of his interest (asparagus, berries, or seashells being the usual), isolate it from the things natural and commonplace to it in other paintings of the period (luxury tableware, smoking pipes scattered about), and set it on a stone slab against a black background, coolly lit from above.
In the Ashmolean asparagus, the asparagus are greener, painted in a sharp and contrasting light that emphasizes their rigidity, but in another, currently housed at the Rijksmuseum, where he had chosen a whiter bundle for his subject, he allows a pale and gentle light to pass through the skin at the ends, thus, at the same time as it is pierced, giving a beautiful effect where the paint-matter of the form’s outline is preserved by its translucency against the vegetable-matter of the thing it is meant to represent. I decided while visiting a World War II fortification at the British international port of Harwich that I would make a brief excursion to the Netherlands by ferry to see this other asparagus painting in person.
Upon my return from the Netherlands three days later, the British immigration officer expressed suspicion at my circumstances. My plan was to visit some friends in London for the weekend, then to visit the Channel Islands for two weeks to see more World War II fortifications, then to fly to Central Asia. To describe my lifestyle: I obtain the money for my travel through online patrons who admire my words enough to pay me. I make hotel and flight reservations on the day of travel to preserve my freedom of movement. I travel without luggage, carrying only the clothes on my back, my passport, my debit card, my phone, and a phone charger. This has been a sufficient explanation for the immigration officers of Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Egypt, and, on three other occasions, the United Kingdom, but, in this instance, I was sat down and asked if I had any psychological issues. I provided evidence in the form of records of conversations with my patrons where I had requested and received large sums of money, and a contact who could confirm the narrative that I had given. When the contact confirmed what I had said, the officer informed him that the decision had already been made not to allow my entry into the United Kingdom before the call had begun due to the suspicion that I was entering to find a job and overstay, and that my friends should not expect to see me that night. I was told that I should come back with more extensive evidence in my defense and was returned to the Netherlands on the ferry, where the Dutch crew mocked the British for refusing me.
I tried to return to the British border the following day by Eurostar. This time, the interrogation was more extensive, and I provided more extensive evidence. I provided the conversations with my patrons. I provided multiple contacts. I provided the thousands of travel pictures on my phone, which the officer praised for their beauty, all of which show my main interests when travelling to be art and architecture. I provided an itinerary of where I would be visiting in the Channel Islands. I provided receipts of previous hotel stays. I provided my Venmo, which shows multiple donations of $2000-$4000 made to me in the last month with confirming captions such as “Tajikistan Islamo-Soviet Architecture Trip May”. I was refused again, and my Electronic Travel Authorization was revoked on the grounds that I was entering to find a job and overstay. The officer’s phrasing: “I am sorry to be the one who has to tell you this …”
Mr. J. Falstaff
~
Having established the sequence of events thus far, let us turn our attention to the written response provided by Border Force Officer C. Lynton on the occasion of Mr. J. Falstaff’s second refusal from the United Kingdom, the salient portion of which is reproduced here:
“You have sought permission to enter the United Kingdom as a visitor for the weekend before travelling to the Channel Islands for a period of days, but I am not satisfied that you are genuinely seeking entry as a visitor and have not provided any evidence of tickets or accommodation. [...] You state that you have approximately $2937 USD in funds to support you for the duration of your trip. You have stated that, whilst you currently are unemployed you make money through your poetry. You stated that people send you money online and pay for your travel, you also provided evidence of such payments ranging from $25 USD to $1000 USD. Given your reliance upon your patrons for funds I am not satisfied that you will not seek work whilst in the UK to support your stay in the UK. I am not satisfied that your purpose in seeking entry to the UK is genuinely and solely for the purpose of a holiday to visit friends. You stated that on this trip you would stay in a Premier Inn hotel however you have not provided evidence of any booking. When asked why you have not made the necessary booking you mentioned you like to be spontaneous and often book at the last moment. Given the fact you are reliant on someone giving you funds it is not feasible that you have come to the UK as a genuine visitor. [...] Since your initial arrival in the United Kingdom in April 2024, you have spent a cumulative period of approximately 24 months travelling as a visitor in Turkey, Jordan, Iran, Egypt, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and the United Kingdom [...] I am not satisfied that you are seeking permission to enter the UK as a visitor [...] I therefore refuse you to enter the United Kingdom.”
Firm as we shall be, we are also fair, so let it be understood that, in revoking Mr. J. Falstaff’s Electronic Travel Authorisation, thus denying him entry to the UK, the letter cites paragraph 4.2, sections (a), (c) and (d), of Appendix V of the Immigration Rules, under which a visitor may be denied if the border officer is not satisfied they will leave at the end of their stay, or will not seek employment while in the country.
Here is a short synopsis of the situation, as Officer C. Lynton appears to understand it.
Mr. J. Falstaff has spent two years as an architectural tourist, wandering about the Outremer; he has seen the Ilkhanid mosques of Iran, has scaled Soviet radio-optical telescopes in the Caucasus, has watched the sundisk glittering on the Nile at Amarna (on this point, Officer C. Lynton does not quibble, and indeed cooed pigeonishly over the photo evidence), so far funded solely by his patrons (again, as duly evidenced.) Their generosity has kept him, for two years or longer, in a state of uninterrupted leisure; again and again, he has seen something glimmer on the far side of the bay, and he has asked his patrons, ‘Let me see it from closer up;’ again and again they have obliged, and once there, he has said at last to himself: ‘I am not satisfied.’
‘I am not satisfied,’ he is supposed to have said to himself, ‘at having been kept so long from drudgery - and besides, I am down to my last, measly $3000. A light lunch. Let me return instead to London, where I plan to seek employment illegally. I have spent two years doing whatsoever I like, and now I would like to ride a bike for Deliveroo.’
Perhaps the good Officer C. Lynton will inform us that these circumstances are more common among illegal immigrants than we might think. In either case, until last week, Mr. J Falstaff was in possession of an ETA; this entitles him to enter the UK, for a stay of up to six months, for a two year period, as he pleases. In defence of his ETA, he has provided no shortage of evidence. Asked for proof of income, he has shown, as the letter acknowledges (though is wildly imprecise on the exact amounts), an itemized history of his patrons’ goodwill; asked for proof of his motives as an architectural tourist, he has provided years’ worth of his photographs of pyramids, minarets, smokestacks and pillbox forts. Asked for proof of accommodation, he, in his initial altercation with Border Force, provided the contact details of a friend with whom he planned to stay; that friend’s protestations having proved futile with some inveterate hobnob-dunker at the Harwich office, he elected, on his second attempt the day following, to explain he would book a hotel. When asked why he could not provide proof of a booking he explained, to quote the letter, that he ‘likes to be spontaneous and will often book at the last moment.’ A brief scan of his previous hotel receipts will demonstrate this to be the case.
There is no claim made by Mr. J. Falstaff that he has not readily and articulately proven beyond all reasonable doubt under questioning. The reader may here wonder if we have been entirely forthright with him up until now; if there has not been some transgression we glossed over, some ace in the hole Officer C. Lynton still has yet to play. And indeed he does; all Mr. J. Falstaff’s supporting evidence is turned to hot air, because on the other side of the ledger, Officer C. Lynton has a hunch. He is not satisfied. That he might have reasons, well-substantiated reasons even, to find himself satisfied, his letter is happy to acknowledge - but nothing, sadly, that will quite scratch this itch, and satisfied he most certainly is not.
Let us be clear in our demands. We do not insist Mr. J. Falstaff has a natural right to enter the UK. We do not insist that he be granted any special privileges that would permit him to hold an ETA without a reasonable examination of his case. We do, however, insist that when the British State accepted his money in exchange for said ETA, it extended to him certain liberties; liberties not to be rescinded on the entirely subjective, unfalsifiable basis that Officer. C. Lynton has offered. We as British citizens, he as an American, us all as Europeans, insist we are too civilised, too literate, too modern, too familiar with life under an administrative state to expect less than that, where we interact with it, certain legible standards of justice and reason will rule the day. We expect a legal system that gives the same weight to the inscrutable hunches and baseless suspicions of petty apparatchiks it does to gris-gris dolls and evil eyes. We expect that when we are told our liberties are to be denied us, we will have an answer to the question ‘Why?’ and ‘Show me where it says so in the book.’
Mr. J. Falstaff’s experience is made all the more irritating by certain mundane details which will be familiar to all those who have had the misfortune of a run-in the British State; the inevitable faux-politenesses, the pretensions at rationality, even of compassion, the endless offerings of a glass of water. At one point, the questioning officer takes Mr. Falstaff’s willingness to travel abroad to see an important work of Dutch Golden Age painting as an obvious sign of a disturbed mind, and asks - in a tone the reader will have no trouble conjuring up - ‘Mentally.. Are you alright?’ (Let this be contrasted with Mr. J. Falstaff’s experience at the Iranian border: having expressed his fondness for Persian culture, the guard asks whether he prefers Rumi or Hafez; evidently satisfied with the answer, he proceeded to recite the verses of the latter from memory.) The conventional pleasantries thus concluded, we come now to the ceremonial passing of the buck to invisible higher powers, to voices from farther rooms, white rooms stinking of window cleaner and laden with choccy biscuits, from which the officer at last slithers out from behind his partition to pronounce the firm-but-fair: ‘I’m sorry to do this, mate…’
Perhaps the reader will here complain that we are being too harsh; that it is not such a bad thing if border force officers are given some leeway to go with their gut, to act on their intuition. After all, the British public has heard far too many horror stories, of violent crimes committed by channel-hopping migrants, to make fuss if our frontier guards are sometimes a little overzealous. It is a job that requires a man to make quick judgements, to think on his feet, and perhaps there is something Officer C. Lynton saw in Mr. J Falstaff that has eluded even his friends, some wicked angel on his shoulder, some lurking penchant for crimes unimaginable. Crimes perhaps still darker than those of Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai, who entered by ferry from Europe in 2019 - who perhaps slipped through Officer Lynton’s very fingers - and was later found guilty of the fatal stabbing of 21 year old Thomas Roberts. Crimes perhaps still darker than those of Valdo Calocane or Femi Nandap; if only they too had expressed an interest in Dutch Golden Age painting, perhaps then their murderous psychoses would have been more apparent to our Border Force officers, and the random slayings of their victims averted. But for each one of these tragedies, we must naturally assume a dozen more have been left uncommitted, because men like Mr. J Falstaff have been refused entry to the country. The British people can rest easy knowing our borders are protected by men of such canny instincts.
I am not satisfied that this is the case. I am not satisfied that the motives at work here are not far less noble. Following the directives of the Under-Secretary of State for Migration and Citizenship Mike Tapp, a tin soldier of uncertain provenance, sprung fully formed from the side of Keir’s head - author of the expansion of the ETA scheme - Border Force today are under strict instructions to project an image of being, as Mr. Tapp is fond of putting it, ‘firm but fair.’ They are required, it is safe to assume, to submit to their superiors the proof of said firmness, in the form of increased numbers of those turned away at the border. This mood (a mood which certainly predates Mike Tapp’s tenure, let it be said, his contributions nonetheless duly noted) has produced, as our globetrotting American or European friends will tell us, a pattern of thuggishness towards those who present themselves as law-abiding and mild-mannered. To refuse someone entry to the UK involves hours of questioning, hours of phone calls with the applicant’s references, hours of offering a glass of water; naturally, it is less unpleasant to spend those hours with the likes of the well-spoken, even-tempered Mr. J. Falstaff than, let’s say, an Abdulrahimzai, a Calocane, or a Nandap, or anyone else who will need a translator, will not answer questions articulately, and may be mentally unstable.
This is a side of the British legal system I imagine many of us will be familiar with. George Galloway has been made familiar with it, when, attempting to enter his country of birth, he was told by Counter Terrorism forces at Gatwick Airport last year, “You’re not under arrest but you’re not free to leave, and you do not have the right to remain silent.” We ourselves have seen it in Mr. Jenrick’s chart-topping ‘Faredodgers’ video, in which he films himself watching dozens of slightly menacing looking men in North Face jackets jump the barrier, until a lone teenager he evidently feels more comfortable accosting attempts the same. We have seen it in the impenetrable gaze of the Council Enforcer, handing us a £150 littering fine for daring to place the butt-end of a cigarette atop a mountain of rubbish our neighbours have piled up in the street. He will tell us, ‘I’m sorry to have to do this, I’m just doing my job, and, no, you can’t go pick it up.’
Here the reader might interject, ‘You are being cruel; these officers of the law are simply following orders.’ All well and good. Show me, then, the man who is not following orders. Show me the man who writes the orders, and is not sorry at seeing them carried out. As recent proceedings in the Commons have proved, we can scour Britain’s chain of command from its bottom all the way to the very top without finding him. Questioned as to why he gave Peter Mandelson - a man who, twice already in his career, has been forced to resign over similar allegations of corruption - a high-profile ambassadorial position, irrespective of the fact he had predictably failed his security vetting over his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the Prime Minister has answered: I was following orders. There was a process in place, there are forces at work in farther rooms, and I am, believe me, just as upset about this as you are.
Starmer is here leaning on his image as a boring, non-nonsense managerialist, run aground by a byzantine network of lanyard wearers and their mysterious procedures; this is an attempt to steer the conversation away from allegations of crookery, toward the safer, vaguely Dr. Newportian, territory of rallying against civil service incompetence, against “pulling levers and nothing happens.” In his addresses to the Commons and the press over the past week, that line has been shot out in sputters like a cloud of squid ink, as it becomes increasingly evident that scratching the back of a man as obviously corrupt as Peter Mandelson, as payback for favours during Starmer’s leadership bid, falls quite far short of the behaviour we might expect from the stiff, impersonal, lawyerly character Starmer has long styled himself as. In other news, three Ukrainian massage artists will stand trial this coming Monday, charged with an arson attack on Keir Starmer’s front and, indeed, back doors; a rare shot of adrenaline in the life of this apparently boring, latter-day George Smiley: he is as furious as we are, no doubt.
Soon after last week’s revelations, Zara Sultana would be suspended for five days from the Commons for accusing Starmer of lying. Is what she did illegal? No but, the next best thing, it’s against convention. Having disallowed a sitting MP from speaking on behalf of her constituents during what may prove to be the most decisive period in the history of this government, Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle remarks as she is made to leave the room: “I’m sorry you’ve done this.”
There is one last challenge our reader is yet to raise against the case of Mr. J. Falstaff; that unjust as it may be, it is ultimately a personal grievance, and none of our business. It is absolutely our business. Not only as partisans of internationalism, European high culture and the liberties of young men everywhere, but also out of embarrassment: collective embarrassment that a well-mannered guest in our country has been subject to the petty bullying of our government. His account is as good a caricature of our period as any, complete with all its most irritating cliches: an account of Firmness going cheek by jowl with Fairness, of the familiar Starmerite conceit of cold, managerial rationality, lending its cover to arbitrary tyrannies and the rule of affective whims; and accompanied by the same hand-wringing, the same self-denials and scapegoating of elusive higher powers with inscrutable motives.
In Satire VI, of Book I, written in defence of the author’s parentage as the son of a freedman, Horace sets out the privileges of middle-class life as follows:
“If after a given age Nature should call upon us to traverse our past lives again, and to choose in keeping with our pride any other parents each might crave - content with my own, I should decline to take those adorned with the rods and chairs of state [...] Today, if I will, I may go on a bob-tailed mule even to Tarentum [...] No one will taunt me with meanness as he does when on the Tiber road five slaves follow you, carrying a commode and case of wine. In this and a thousand other ways I live in more comfort than you, illustrious senator. Wherever the fancy leads, I saunter forth alone; I ask the price of greens and flour.”
It is these modest liberties that we find imperiled today; the liberty of a man of modest means to leave his country, his kindred and his father’s house; to leave aside the circumstances of his birth, to shed the dead weight of custom and habit, to travel light, to traverse the world at a leisurely pace without disturbing the scenery, unencumbered by the state. Set against him are the champions of drudgery, state thuggery and petty tyranny, of hypocrisy and anti-intellectualism. Should the reader feel compelled to take a side, we invite him to sign the petition here in favour of Mr. J. Falstaff’s case, and write his name on our side of the ledger.
The Marquis