Geoffrey Darnton

Bournemouth

Academic

...and it gets worse .... I have a staggering case at the moment of the refusal of a visa in Bangkok for someone to make a 3-week visit, fully sponsored, to the UK who is working on a strategically important project, where some of the work has been outsourced to Thailand - all the Embassy can come up with to cover their unbelievably irrational refusal is to say that 'on the balance of probabilities' they do not believe the person will return to Thailand at the end of the short visit! - with no evidence whatsoever - so they even ignore the advice of UKvisas' own independent monitor. Wherever there are arbitrary powers it is vital to have safeguards in place - they are missing for cases like this, so the arbitrary exercise of power goes unchecked.