This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Edinburgh’s arts and cultural festivals have lobbied ministers to introduce a more flexible visa system, fearing European artists could be barred from entering the UK after Brexit.

Nick Barley, the director of the Edinburgh international book festival, said there was concern that performers from the EU would face the same visa restrictions as artists from the Middle East, Africa and south Asia.

A dozen authors due to take part in last year’s festival were denied visas, including the Palestinian writer Nayrouz Qarmout who was refused entry three times before the Home Office eventually relented. Some were told they had too much money and others not enough.

This year’s festival is due to feature more than 900 participants from 65 countries – the largest number yet, but Barley said it was unclear at this stage whether all those invited would get visas. Its most prominent guests this year include Salman Rushdie, Thomas Keneally and Arundhati Roy.

Festivals Edinburgh, the umbrella body for 11 of the city’s arts and cultural festivals, met Caroline Nokes, the immigration minister, in London on Wednesday to lobby for more flexibility.

Julia Amour, the director of Festivals Edinburgh, said after the meeting: “Complex visa rules [can] deter artists from accepting our invitations and threaten the free flow of culture and ideas at a time when the country needs to be even more globally engaged.”

Barley said there was a pressing need to change policy both to support this year’s festivals and to avoid the problem spreading.

“This is about culture in Britain as a whole,” he said.“After Brexit our major concern is that this might begin to affect authors within Europe and therefore there’s an urgent need to sort this out, not just in order to make sure we can get visas sorted out for authors from the Middle East, Africa, Palestine and so on.”

Rushdie, making his fifth appearance at the Edinburgh book festival, is launching his latest book Quichotte, a US-based reworking of Don Quixote, while Roy will be interviewed by Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister, on her first appearance at the event.

Barley said internationalism was the key unifying theme of this year’s festival. One of three guest selectors this year will be is DeRay Mckesson, a leading voice in the Black Lives Matter movement in the US.

There will be a strong focus on indigenous languages and cultural exchange, featuring Sami from Lapland, Basques from Spain and Inuit poets, while Carrie Gracie, the former BBC News China editor who quit over pay discrimination, launches her new book, Equal, at the festival. Jokha Alharthi, the Omani author who won the 2019 Man Booker International prize for Celestial Bodies, will also talk in a late addition to the programme.

At last year’s book festival Barley met David Lidington, the Cabinet Office minister, to discuss the issue. The British Council, the government-funded agency that promotes international cultural exchange, has become involved and has lobbied for changes.

The Home Office said Nokes was meeting numerous arts organisations including Festivals Edinburgh as part of the government’s work on a new skills-based immigration system post-Brexit.

A spokesman did not respond to the criticism of the current system but said: “We welcome artists and performers coming to the UK to perform, and appreciate the important contribution they make to our creative sector.”

Barley signed a letter to the Guardian last year along with the directors of Womad, the Hay literature festival, Sheffield Doc/Fest, Manchester international festival and Bradford literary festival calling for reform of the “overly complex” system.

After three acts were unable to perform at Womad last year because of visa problems, the festival’s founder, Peter Gabriel, said: “Do we really want a white-breaded Brexited flatland? A country that is losing the will to welcome the world?”

Womad and the Edinburgh Fringe are among 45 arts festivals on an approved government list that is intended to provide for visitor visas, but complications still arise.

Barley has previously called for a “cultural passport” allowing artists greater freedom to visit the UK.