WHAT A CARRIE ON!
Hours after Mail scoop, PM partner’s backdoor dash to plead for US visa
BORIS Johnson’s girlfriend Carrie Symonds was rushed to the US embassy yesterday to ask for her travel ban to be lifted. Her emergency dash came after the Daily Mail revealed yesterday that she had been barred from visiting America in the next few days as part of her work for an eco group based there.
Miss Symonds, 31, was spotted being whisked out of the back door of the embassy in Nine Elms, south-west London, and into a waiting blacked-out Honda SUV.
The decision to bar her from visiting the US stemmed from her five-day visit last year to Somaliland in East Africa. The Prime Minister’s girlfriend went to the civil war-torn region with her friend Nimco Ali, a campaigner against female genital mutilation, who was born in Somaliland, which broke away from neighbouring Somalia in 1991.
During their trip, they met the self-declared Somaliland president Muse Bihi Abdi to discuss women’s issues and sea pollution. However, while the UK has diplomatic relations with Somaliland, Washington does not recognise the breakaway region.
That meant Miss Symonds’ planned US trip fell foul of Donald Trump’s controversial travel ban targeted at seven Muslim-majority nations, including Somalia.
Anyone who has visited any of the seven since 2011 is automatically denied an Esta, the standard travel permit for British visitors.
The US Embassy declined to comment on Miss Symonds but said the only way to get round the ban was to go to the embassy in person and ask for a special nonimmigrant visa. it is believed that this advice prompted Miss Symonds’ visit yesterday.
The ViP-style response – she was processed barely 12 hours after the Mail revealed the ban and did not have to leave via the front door with other applicants – led some to believe she was given special treatment as the PM’s partner. The process is understood normally to take a week or longer.
Miss Symonds wants to visit the US instead of travelling with Mr Johnson to this weekend’s G7 summit in Biarritz. She has scheduled a series of meetings as part of her job as an adviser for Oceana, a non-profit organisation that seeks to protect the world’s oceans.