The overwhelming majority of Britons believe that the government should deploy the Royal Navy to stem the tide of the illegal boat migrant crisis in the English Channel, a poll has found.
According to a survey from the More in Common polling firm, seven in ten voters, or 69 per cent, agreed that the Royal Navy should be dispatched to the English Channel to stop the migrant boats from France. In contrast, only 18 per cent opposed using the Navy to protect Britain’s maritime borders from illegal migration, the Times of London reported.
This puts the public broadly in line with the position of Nigel Farage and his Reform UK party, which has advocated for using the Royal Navy if the French continue to fail to stop people smuggling networks operating on their beaches from sending illegals across the Channel.
Under the previous Tory government of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Britain agreed to pay France £478 million (€541 million) in 2023 to step up border protection and even construct a detention centre for the French. This came on top of other migration payoffs totalling over £300 million over the past decade.
Despite this, the migrant crisis has only grown, with around 20,000 illegals crossing the English Channel during the first half of this year, an increase of over 50 per cent compared to last year.
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and President Emmanuel Macron announced a “one in, one out” deal on the border. However, experts believe that this will result in at most around 50 people being returned to France per week, and Paris will reportedly have veto power over who is returned.
Mr Farage described the deal as a “farce” and said Britain should be “demanding a refund” for the £800 million given to France, given their failures, and that the French Navy often escorts illegals into UK waters.
The Reform leader has long advocated for a similar approach to that of former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s Operation Sovereign Borders, which all but eliminated illegal migration by turning the boats back and holding alleged asylum seekers in third-party countries rather than allowing them on Australian shores to claim asylum.
The current British policy allows for almost all illegal boat migrants — the vast majority of whom are military age males — to immediately claim asylum, after which they are put up at taxpayer expense in hotels across the country. This policy has sparked a growing protest movement in recent weeks following accusations that an Ethiopian hotel migrant sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl in Epping just days after landing on British soil.
In addition to using the Royal Navy, the More in Common poll suggested that other reforms are needed to eliminate the pull factors for illegal immigration. The survey found that 54 per cent believe migrants are coming to the UK to take advantage of the British welfare system, while 49 per cent said that they think migrants see British benefits as being easier to game than those in other countries. Just 37 per cent said that they thought migrants were motivated by fleeing conflict.
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