Finnish MP Päivi Räsänen has been granted permission to enter the UK, but the decision came too late for her to attend a religious freedom conference in Northern Ireland in person.
Räsänen said on X that she was informed at 6.45pm on Friday that her visa application had been approved, just 45 minutes before she was due to address the event. She instead delivered her speech remotely at 7.30pm.
The decision came days after the Christian politician made a public appeal to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to intervene in her case.
Räsänen had originally been granted an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) in June, but it was cancelled the following month. The Home Office did not give a reason for the cancellation.
She subsequently applied for a full visa and wrote personally to Mahmood asking for the application to be considered in time for her planned visit.
In her appeal last week, Räsänen said: “It is shocking that the UK has blocked me, a democratically elected politician in an allied European state, from entering the country.”
She said she believed the decision was linked to her conviction in Finland over a pamphlet she authored on the traditional Christian view of marriage and sexuality.
“Even though this unjust conviction is currently on appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, the UK has likely refused me travel authorisation on this basis,” she said.
Calling for the Home Secretary’s intervention, she added: “There is still time for this censorship to be reversed.”
However, although her visa was eventually approved, the decision came too late for her to travel to Northern Ireland for the conference.
According to ADF International, which is supporting Räsänen, she had been told that the application would take around three weeks to process. It was instead granted more than four weeks later, despite her application including the date of the event and details of her planned flights.
Following the decision, Räsänen said she was "grateful to UK authorities and God that the visa finally arrived".
"Of course too late for this week's conference. But now I'm free to travel if the UK area wants to hear about freedom of speech and religion," she said.
Räsänen, the former Finnish interior minister, was convicted by Finland’s Supreme Court in March despite being acquitted by two lower courts.
Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola and the Luther Foundation Finland were also convicted in connection with the publication of the booklet. All three are appealing in the European Court of Human Rights.
