{"id":725822,"date":"2026-08-03T10:30:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T10:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/725822\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T10:30:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T10:30:13","slug":"former-navy-officer-criticises-reform-plan-to-use-military-to-stop-small-boats-reform-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/725822\/","title":{"rendered":"Former navy officer criticises Reform plan to use military to stop small boats | Reform UK"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Reform UK proposal to use the military to stop small boats bringing migrants to the UK from France lacks substance, a former Royal Navy<\/a> officer has said, suggesting the UK\u2019s warships would be better used countering actual military threats.<\/p>\n

Reform\u2019s political opponents have claimed its plans have more to do with distracting from the financial scandals<\/a> surrounding its leader, Nigel Farage, than about solving the small boats issue, after the party proposed having the navy pick up people trying to make irregular Channel crossings and take them to France.<\/p>\n

\u201cA billion-pound warship that\u2019s configured for anti-air warfare or anti-submarine warfare, which are both threats to the UK, is not best used ferrying people around. You\u2019re better off using an actual ferry,\u201d the retired Royal Naval Cmdr Tom Sharpe told BBC Radio 4\u2019s Today programme on Monday.<\/p>\n

Sharpe said Reform\u2019s proposal \u201clacks quite a lot of substance\u201d and that the navy did not have suitable ships to spare, given the military operations it was already carrying out.<\/p>\n

He added that the proposal seemed very similar to a plan put forward by the Conservatives four years ago, while that party was in government. During that time, crossings almost doubled, the navy was said to have been deployed as a \u201ctaxi service\u201d<\/a> and the government handed millions of pounds per year<\/a> to private firms to pick people up in the Channel.<\/p>\n

Labour said Reform had \u201creheated an old announcement in their latest desperate bid to distract from their growing sleaze scandals\u201d. A spokesperson said: \u201cAnger and easy answers won\u2019t bring crossings down. The serious action we\u2019ve taken have started to have a real impact and has led to 46,000 attempted crossings stopped, and 70,000 people with no right to be here removed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know there\u2019s more to do on this complex issue. What is far less complicated is Nigel Farage\u2019s brazen attempts to dodge scrutiny over his secret \u00a35m gift from a crypto billionaire. It\u2019s time he stopped the distraction tactics and came clean with the public.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sharpe said one of the biggest hurdles was the likelihood of the French authorities agreeing to allow the navy to dump people on their shores. Speaking to Today on Monday, Reform\u2019s spokesperson for home affairs, Zia Yusuf, said: \u201cIf the French disagree, what will end up happening is we\u2019ll end up having something of an argument with the French.\u201d<\/p>\n

He claimed that French authorities refusing to allow people to disembark on its shores would be a \u201ccrime against humanity\u201d. Yusuf added: \u201cThis is a boat full of innocent civilians who are being rescued as part of a humanitarian mission.\u201d He did not explain how his party\u2019s policy of refusing to allow any to make it safely to the UK\u2019s shores would not constitute the same.<\/p>\n

Yusuf claimed Reform had sought legal opinion that its plan would be lawful, saying it would define people making the Channel crossing by irregular means as being in distress at sea \u2013 obliging the navy to rescue them. He said his party would also tell French authorities they must abide by obligations under international law to process those people\u2019s asylum claims \u201cbecause it is a safe country\u201d. He did not explain what Reform\u2019s stance would be if France simply said the same to the UK.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Reform UK proposal to use the military to stop small boats bringing migrants to the UK from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":725823,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-725822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=725822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/725823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}