Zia Yusuf, Reform UK’s Home Affairs spokesman, is making quite a name for himself as someone who provokes rage across the political spectrum on an almost daily basis. He appears to operate in a political fantasy world, in which he alone has the answers to problems that have defeated everyone else. His latest ‘solution’, focusing on the small boats crisis, is that the Royal Navy and Royal Marines should use ‘lethal force’ against smugglers operating boats in the English Channel.
‘If people smugglers resist, our boys will be authorised to use lethal force. We will take our country back,’ he declared. For added emphasis, using Trumpian capital letters, he said marines would be given a simple order: ‘DO NOT LET A SINGLE INVADER REACH OUR SHORES.’
That’s plain enough, you might think. Yet, in a subsequent interview with the BBC, Yusuf appeared to change tack, saying that what he actually meant was that lethal force should only be used ‘in extremely limited circumstances where it is necessary to protect innocent life’. Yusuf then added that British forces must be equipped to respond defensively if migrants or people smugglers on the boats possess weapons or threaten to throw individuals overboard.
All this amounts to political gymnastics of the first order
Which is it then? Is Yusuf advocating for what seemed to be his original idea of going on the front foot with military-backed lethal force to ‘take our county back’, or is he just a cuddly humanitarian, arguing merely for some form of last-resort defensive action, based on protecting ‘innocent life’? Does even Yusuf himself know? Does he engage brain before mouth when proclaiming policy? There was even more confusion when he told Sky News that the navy’s actions would depend entirely on intelligence-led threat assessments, which is basically the position of the current, and you’d hope any, government.
All this amounts to political gymnastics of the first order. Nowhere in Yusuf’s political thinking (if just shooting your mouth off can be called ‘thinking’) is the small matter of what serving marines might think of his instructions. Directions given to service personnel have to be lawful and they are subject to rules of engagement.
Imagine, if you will, a situation in which marines shot at a boat and killed a child. What would happen then? What if the navy boarded a boat and the subsequent panic and mayhem led to drowning or loss of life, all caught by watching TV crews? What consequences does Yusuf think would follow?
The answer, in the real world at least, is that there would be an almighty political row, with potential criminal investigations in this country as well as in France. The blunt truth is that Yusuf is just saying things because they sound good (in the moment) and give the impression that he has a plan. He can afford to say such things simply because he and his party are not in power.
It is not just Yusuf who is living in cloud cuckoo land when it comes to tackling the small boats crisis. Nigel Farage, back in August, proposed ‘Operation Fortress’ as his blueprint for stopping the boats. This would involve Royal Navy ships intercepting the vessels and forcing them back to the French coast as part of a ‘rescue and return’ strategy. This too is largely unworkable.
The French would consider such a scheme to be a violation of their sovereignty and have already stated as much. The key legislation is the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which establishes the core duty to render assistance to any person found at sea who is in danger of being lost. Furthermore, the 1979 Search and Rescue Convention (SAR) divides the world’s sea areas into search and rescue regions within which the relevant coastal state is responsible for the provision of search and rescue operations. No recognisable law of the sea permits the armed forces of one state to go into the territorial waters of another state to apprehend and return people to that state.
Reform UK must know this, surely, so why all the tough talk? It should equally come as no surprise that the party’s political opponents have leapt to attack the idea of using ‘lethal force’ against migrants illegally crossing the English Channel. Defence Minister Luke Pollard described the idea as ‘disgusting and illegal’ and ‘abhorrent to British military values’. These are just more fancy words in place of any actual solution to the ongoing crisis. Zia Yusuf is far from alone in making it up as he goes along.
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