Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, one of the only Western leaders to have ever ended a small boats crisis in modern times, decried the “peaceful invasion” of Europe and has given Reform UK’s border crisis plan the nod, party leader Nigel Farage said.
Nigel Farage launched Operation Fortress earlier this week, the Reform UK party policy to end the southern border small migrant boat crisis by enabling the military — predominantly the Royal Navy and Royal Marines — to enforce the border and engage in hot pushbacks against migrants attempting to break into the country. This would ideally be done in cooperation with the French government, a new French President is due in the Elysee Palace next year making that much more likely than would be today under outgoing leader Emmanuel Macron, but would be carried through even without it, he said.
While the present British government claims to have a “plan” to tackle the small boats of human traffickers that have brought over 2,000 illegal migrants in just the first fortnight of Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s leadership alone, so far this merely seems to be a steady-as-she-goes approach that continues on from the previous Labour administration. In this approach, state actors at the border act not as enforcers of the frontier but as a concierge, facilitating migrants to cross the English Channel safely and onto British soil to then enter the refugee processing system.
In a clip promoted by Mr Farage, former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott spelt out not only the danger to European states from open borders, but also asserted some of the key factors needed in a response. He said: “There are two elements that are absolutely essential.
“The first is being prepared to send boats back, if needs be, end people back in unsinkable life rafts which is what my government did. The second is disrupting these gangs on land, and largely with the cooperation of the Indonesians that’s what we did.
“The issue for the British government is how much cooperation will they get from the French, but it has to happen, by hook or by crook it just has to happen because what’s happening across the English Channel now is a peaceful invasion.”
Abbott warned the alternative to strong border control is potentially catastrophic, and went on to say: “This is where Europe collectively has been incredibly weak, if you lose control of your borders, in the end you lose your sovereignty. And Europe has now tolerated what amounts to a peaceful invasion for over a decade.”
Tony Abbott was the Australian Prime Minister who, over ten years ago, instituted Operation Sovereign Borders from 2013. Operating on an absolutely zero-tolerance approach to dealing with the deadly human trafficker boats who had killed over 1,000 people, Operation Sovereign Borders made clear that every migrant boat would be turned around, and anyone who attempted to break into Australia would be permanently banned from the country.
The physical prevention, enforced by the Royal Australian Navy and other government agencies, was paired with an easy-to-understand public information campaign in common source countries making clear even trying to get to Australia had been rendered pointless.
The hardline crackdown didn’t just slow the rate of arrivals, it stopped them altogether, and Australia enjoyed consecutive years without a single migrant boat reaching Australia. Importantly, the deaths at sea of migrants on smuggler boats also ended.
Former Australian Prime Minister Abbott — who was born in Britain — has frequently attempted to encourage the United Kingdom government to do what has already been proven effective and launch a zero-tolerance boat turnaround policy. As reported in 2023, Abbott said:
Stopping the boats was also the only way to stop the deaths. As long as arriving illegally by boat was the ticket to a better life in a better country, my government reasoned, the people smugglers would have a product to sell, with customers prepared to take their chances on the open sea. “Taking the sugar off the table” upset all the usual moralisers, but it was actually the most moral thing to do in the circumstances we faced.
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