Is rudeness to UK immigration officials a sufficient reason to deny entry?
Do UK immigration officials have the discretion to refuse entry to arriving visitors solely because of condescending answers, rude behavior and arrogant answers to questions?
I know the officers are free to refuse you entry by deliberately making unreasonable inferences, e.g. £3,000 for a one week visit is not enough and does not convince me you’re a genuine visitor, etc. I get that.
However my question is specifically: Do the rules allow them to refuse entry because Mr. XYZ was rude to an officer of UK immigration and thus...?
Does such a case fall under General grounds for refusal Section 3 of 5 – Considering entry at UK port
Paragraph 320(19) V 3.3
Refusing the applicant entry to the UK is conducive to the public good. For example, because of the applicant’s character, conduct or associations, it is undesirable to give them leave to enter.
For clarity I am referring to non-violent, nonaggressive, noncriminal behavior.
Best Answer
Consider a hypothetical Snarkgirl, whose superpower is being rude.
She cannot be arrogant, rude or condescending in a vacuum
The root problem is it is impracticable to separate these trivial traits from the non-trivial things they imply.
When she gives a rude answer, she "uses up" the one slot where a straight answer would plug in. That means she is not giving a straight answer, which means she is evading.
What's more, such speech has a subtext. One is not rude randomly. One is rude to establish dominance over another person, or to lodge a complaint in a passive-aggressive manner, or to deflect attention from something else. They are going to care about that subtext. Since Snarkgirl hasn't directly stated it, she is being deceptive and worse, she is leaving Immigration guessing as to her actual motivations.
Show a photo of a man leaning over a baby carriage. Citizens tend to say they see a doting father. Cops tend to say they see a child abduction. That is why you must be careful around cops, they are the most paranoid people around.
It's easy to Mary-Sue yourself into being the hero of your own story. But remember, unlike every amateur sleuth on TV, you don't have plot armor: there is no mechanism by which they come to their senses by the end of the episode.
If you are compelled to be clever, you would have to be very, very careful to structure your responses so you are plainly giving a straight and honest answer, and then simply capping it off with a Dennis Leary snark.
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Answer 2
The rule is "Refusing the applicant entry to the UK is conducive to the public good. For example... "
If you are rude, and the immigration official is annoyed by your rudeness, that would not be a reason to not let you enter.
But if the immigration official decides that your rudeness implies the UK is better off without you, then they can refuse you entry.
So it depends on what rudeness we are talking about. If you said to the immigration official "you are an a******e" then this should not be grounds for refusal. If you said "you are an a******e, the same as all the Brits", that could be grounds for refusal. Obviously the government official is not bound by my opinion, and saying either thing would be rather stupid if your goal is to enter the UK.
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