Reform UK plan to return asylum seekers using navy ‘dangerous in practice’ 

A plan put forward by Britain’s right-wing Reform UK party to deploy the navy to intercept and return asylum seekers arriving by boat has triggered a dispute with France.

Reform leader Nigel Farage, who is under political pressure at home over a series of financial scandals and faces a by-election in just more than a week, characterised the mission dubbed “Operation Fortress” not as pushbacks but as “rescue and return”. He argued that, per its humanitarian nature, the measure would not breach international law, as stated by the French Ministry of the Interior.

Pointing to the arrival of thousands of migrants in Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta, Farage on Monday pledged, if elected, to stop a similar “invasion” by launching the largest military operation in the English Channel since World War II. He said the measure would ensure that people are “immediately returned to their point of departure”.

Responding to France, Reform said: “We will always stand up for British interests and protect our people, whether [President] Emmanuel Macron likes it or not.”

Zia Yusuf, Reform UK’s spokesperson for home affairs, claimed France “sent us 200,000 illegal migrants, including murderers and terrorists”, and that marines would return them anyway to the French coast.

But groups and analysts say the proposal is unrealistic and could lead to a diplomatic dispute.

The Centre for Military Justice said international maritime laws do not “permit a State’s armed forces to go into the territorial waters of another state to seize and return people to that state. Indeed, in most cases, to do so may well amount to a flagrant breach of these conventions.”

Unilateral action on Britain’s part “would have a major diplomatic effect, prompting France to suspend existing cooperation, such as intelligence sharing and beach patrols in Northern France”, Mihnea Cuibus, senior researcher at the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory, told Al Jazeera. “It is also possible that France would attempt to repel British ships in the Channel to prevent further returns.”

Implementing the plan would therefore not be “as straightforward as simply ordering the deployment of the Royal Navy into French territory”, Cuibus said, but would require a bilateral deal that France looks unlikely to acquiesce to.

‘Waste of military resources’

Sarah Singer, professor of refugee law at the University of London, described the plan as a “complete waste of military resources”.

As France has made its opposition clear, attempting to return people would have “huge diplomatic repercussions between the UK and its nearest neighbours”, with potential consequences affecting issues of mutual interest like trade and intelligence.

While returning asylum seekers could be read as an “act of aggression” by France, it would also run counter to international law, said Singer.

“Summary expulsions are contrary to UK and European law, which requires those seeking protection to have their cases individually assessed to determine if they can safely be removed,” the lecturer told Al Jazeera.

The same strategy was touted in 2022 under the Conservative government of Boris Johnson and “abandoned as the gimmick that it is”, she said.

Then, former Home Secretary Priti Patel claimed that the so-called Operation Isotrope would make crossing the Channel “unviable”, but the plan was abandoned after military officials raised concerns that it would be dangerous and leave them exposed to legal action.

Former Navy Commander Tom Sharpe has voiced similar concerns over Reform’s pledge, describing it as “sketchy in theory, dangerous in practice”.

Sharpe said the Royal Navy could enter French waters and ports without permission only by invoking the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), a maritime treaty that establishes a general duty to rescue people in distress.

This would put “sailors and marines in the invidious position of having to pretend a routine crossing was SOLAS, and then probably creating an actual one as they intervene”, Sharpe said on X, calling the strategy “disingenuous at best”.

‘Humanitarian thing to do’

On Tuesday, more than 150 people were rescued as they attempted to cross the Channel when their vessel caught fire. Farage reacted to the news by pledging to “put a stop to this”. “Our plan will saves [sic] lives,” he said on X.

Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, said “rescue and return” was the “humanitarian thing to do”. “We must stop people dying.”

Prime Minister Andy Burnham on Monday said his government will be “relentless” in curbing the number of people arriving in the United Kingdom through the Channel, as the ruling Labour Party accused Reform of using migration to deflect attention from questions about its finances amid reports of gifts and donations to senior party figures.

According to YouGov polling, if a general election were held tomorrow, 17 percent of Britons would vote for Reform, 19 percent would vote Labour and 14 percent would back the Conservatives.

Sarah Wolff, professor in international studies and global politics at Leiden University, noted that while military boats had worked in the past – the Italian Navy mission Mare Nostrum that operated between 2013 and 2014, which had medical facilities on board, was said to have saved tens of thousands of lives and allowed for asylum applications to be processed in Italy – Reform UK’s scheme would instead “return migrants back to France and not take any responsibility for processing asylum applications”, making it equivalent to a pushback.

Before exiting the European Union in 2020, the UK had been able to return asylum seekers to the country of first entry under the Dublin Convention, which established the rule of first entry to avoid multiple asylum claims.

“Now, it has no means to return them back to an EU country,” Wolff told Al Jazeera. “So it is a bit ironic that (Reform UK, then known as the Brexit Party) which campaigned at the time to ‘gain back control’ is now offering solution to a post-Brexit migration situation it contributed to create.”