Reform UK is split on camera over how far a future government could go in the English Channel after MP Robert Jenrick said Royal Marines should be allowed to use lethal force when turning small boats back toward France. Party leader Nigel Farage said hours later that Jenrick had been “utterly misconstrued” and that troops would fire only if they were fired upon.
What Jenrick said on TalkTV
Jenrick, who defected from the Conservatives to Reform, told TalkTV on Tuesday that his party would deploy Royal Marines to pick up migrants at sea and return them to France. Pressed on enforcement, he said: “If they need to use lethal force, then they’ll be able to do so.”
He added that authorising force would end crossings “in just a few days,” while insisting it was “obviously not what we want to see happen” and that people should be removed “in a sensible and reasonable way.” The remarks landed as Reform seeks to keep small-boat crossings at the centre of its pitch to voters ahead of the next general election.
Farage’s walk-back on LBC
Speaking on LBC, Farage said he would not sign off routine violence against people in boats. “Anybody wearing British military uniform who gets fired at has the right to respond,” he said, arguing that criminal gangs operating in northern France sometimes carry weapons. He predicted that if boats were returned to France, crossings would stop within two weeks.
The exchange left unanswered how a Reform government would negotiate co-operation from Paris, which has repeatedly rejected UK proposals to process asylum claims offshore or accept returns from British waters without fresh treaties.
Ministers call the idea unlawful
Armed forces minister Luke Pollard told Times Radio the comments were “disgusting and illegal,” adding that service personnel must refuse unlawful orders. “We do not shoot unarmed civilians,” he said. Pollard accused Reform of floating the idea to distract from internal scandals, though he did not specify which controversies he meant.
Downing Street has leaned on expanded police powers and returns deals with European partners rather than deploying marines in the Channel. Home Office data released last month showed small-boat arrivals running below the 2024 peak, but Reform argues the headline figure hides record asylum backlog costs.
Former Royal Navy officers interviewed by broadcasters on Tuesday stressed that rules of engagement in UK waters are tightly scripted and that ministers cannot simply order troops to open fire on crowded dinghies without breaching domestic and international law. Labour strategists hope the split-screen between Jenrick and Farage will remind swing voters of prior episodes in which Reform figures offered hard-line soundbites that party headquarters later softened.
For service chiefs, the immediate question is whether rhetoric about lethal force changes recruitment or rules-of-engagement training for crews already conducting surveillance and rescue missions in crowded shipping lanes shared with commercial ferries and fishing fleets.