Reform UK said on Monday it would mount what it described as the biggest military deployment in the English Channel since the Second World War to halt asylum seekers reaching Britain, an announcement that comes as the party slides in the polls and fields awkward questions about its money.
Party leader Nigel Farage set out the harder line at a London press conference, citing a migration crisis unfolding in Ceuta, Spain’s enclave on the North African coast. Under the plan, people crossing in small boats would be intercepted at sea and taken back to France.
Reform has branded the policy “Operation Fortress” and says it would leave the British border impenetrable. Farage told reporters that a Reform government would end the crossings within two weeks of taking office.
The announcement follows a bruising stretch for Farage. Reform surrendered its lead in national polling for the first time in more than a year after disclosures about gifts and donations received by senior figures in the party.
Labour dismissed the proposals as recycled immigration pledges designed to pull attention away from Reform’s finances. Several analysts also doubted the plan could be carried out.
Andrew Fox, a former paratrooper and senior associate fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, said the scheme sounded impressive so long as one knew nothing about ships, sailors, France or the law. Without French consent, he said, Britain could not sail warships into French waters, confiscate boats or put passengers ashore at Calais. He described that as the hole at the heart of the policy.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham pledged on Sunday to act relentlessly against Channel crossings after figures showed more than 2,000 people had reached Britain in the two weeks since he took over as leader.
