Sławomir Mentzen detained at London airport
Polish politician Sławomir Mentzen was questioned for more than three hours at a London airport after British border officers said he had been flagged by an unnamed organisation.
Mentzen, leader of the New Hope party and a former Polish presidential candidate, was detained on Friday after arriving in the United Kingdom for a weekend trip with his wife and children. Instead of beginning a family visit, he spent several hours being questioned alongside migrants from the Middle East.
Mentzen, who finished third in last year’s Polish presidential election, did not hold back after the incident. He described Britain as a “crumbling state” and a “totalitarian country”.
“This crumbling state has no problem with being colonised by Indians and Arabs, but it has a problem with the idea that I might want to say something to someone here,” the politician wrote on social media.
According to Mentzen, passport control officials first told him the matter would be resolved quickly. Instead, he found himself in a room with people who had arrived from Iran and Afghanistan.
“And I just sat there without any explanation,” he said.
After an hour, an officer approached him and admitted that he did not understand what the issue was. Later, Mentzen said, it emerged that “some organisation”, the officer did not know which one, had flagged him in the system. To find out what to do next, the officer sent an email.
Another hour later, Mentzen was questioned about why he had come to Britain, where he would be staying and whether he planned to speak at any events. When he replied that he had simply come to spend time with his family, he said a female officer looked sceptical.
After three hours, his passport was returned and he was allowed to enter the country. No explanation was given.
“They ruined my day with my family in London, and I still did not even understand what it was about,” Mentzen wrote.
Earlier cases involving Polish conservatives
Mentzen said he was not surprised by what happened. In his post, he recalled that several years earlier, Polish publicist Rafał Ziemkiewicz and veteran politician Janusz Korwin-Mikke had faced similar problems entering the United Kingdom.
Korwin-Mikke is one of the most controversial Polish politicians of recent decades. In 2022, then British Home Secretary Priti Patel personally banned him from entering the country over what was described as “unacceptable behaviour and extremism”. He is known for having been suspended twice from the European Parliament: first over Nazi salutes, and later over comments that women should earn less than men because they are “weaker, smaller and less intelligent”.
That did not stop him in 2023 from bypassing British restrictions. He flew to Dublin, then crossed into Northern Ireland by ferry and later spoke at a political event in Bury.
Rafał Ziemkiewicz is a well-known Polish conservative journalist and writer who has been criticised by the left for nationalist and anti-immigration views. Reports of his earlier problems at the British border were also public, although the details of that incident remained unclear.
Mentzen accuses London of selective censorship
Mentzen drew a sharp comparison. He said the British system applies “preventive political censorship”, but only selectively. In his view, the problem is not Islamic fundamentalists or rabbis who justify violence, but right-wing European politicians.
“If I were an Islamic fundamentalist publicly demanding that gays be thrown from towers, that disobedient women have acid thrown in their faces, and that Israel be destroyed, I would have no problems. If I were a rabbi approving genocide in Gaza, nobody would stop me either,” he wrote.
Mentzen’s position on migration is well known. He strongly opposes the inflow of migrants into Poland and describes Britain as a country being “colonised by Indians and Arabs”.
“If I had simply arrived here in an inflatable boat with some Africans, I would have had no problem getting into Britain. Illegal immigrants, criminals and, in effect, anyone who wants to come here are welcome. That is normal for them. What is not normal is a politician from Poland who wanted to spend the weekend with his family in London,” Mentzen concluded.
The incident prompted a rare show of unity in the Polish establishment despite political differences.
Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski and consul Agnieszka Fabryczewska contacted Mentzen and promised to send official requests to British institutions seeking an explanation.
Marcin Przydacz, a minister in the office of the Polish president, wrote on X:
“One does not have to agree with Mentzen on every point, but he is a Polish citizen and has full rights, including the right to his own opinion. There is no consent to treating a person this way only because of his views.”
Mentzen thanked the authorities for their support. He said he had always believed that politicians in Poland may argue among themselves, but outside the country’s borders, Poles should support one another.
