Former Navy Commander Monsters Reform’s Plan To Send Small Boat Migrants Back To France

A former Royal Navy commander has monstered Reform UK’s plan to use the military to return small boat migrants back to where they came from.

Tom Sharpe said the policy “starts to unravel quite quickly” and would not work.

Reform said it will launch “the largest military operation in the English Channel since World War Two” if it wins the next election.

Under “Project Fortress”, a joint military command with units from the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, RAF and British Army would be set up to track incoming boats and then send them back to France and Belgium.

But speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, Sharpe, said the Royal Navy no no longer had enough ships to carry out the mission.

The retired commander said: “There’s a notion that the Royal Navy could steam in over the horizon and fix this problem, which is declining slightly anyway.

“The reality, when you start looking at what ships we have, which is basically none.

“He’s talking about the largest maritime operation in the Channel since World War 2 – a very evocative image, but that’s not the reality. We don’t have the ships.

“And if you do bring your ships to bear, and you start investigating what exactly you’re going to do with them and where, it starts to unravel quite quickly.”

Sharpe said the UK Border Force was already equipped to do what Reform wants the military to achieve.

“A billion pound warship that’s configured for anti-air warfare or anti-submarine warfare, which are both threats to the UK, is not best used ferrying people around,” he said. “You’re better off using an actual ferry.”

He also queried whether France would agree to accept the small boats if they were turned back.

He said: “It needs their total approval, which I don’t think we’ll get. Brutally, why would we?”

Reform leader Nigel Farage and Zia Yusuf, the party’s home affairs spokesman, will outline the party’s policy at a press conference on Monday.

Yusuf said: “Nigel Farage will order His Majesty’s Royal Navy to ensure that not a single unauthorised vessel crossing the English Channel makes it to the shores of the United Kingdom.

“Those who attempt it will be intercepted by our Armed Forces and returned to France.”

But a Labour spokesman said: “Reform have reheated an old announcement in their latest desperate bid to distract from their growing sleaze scandals.”

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