Richard Tice and Zia Yusuf have thrown their toys out the pram after being questioned over Reform’s outlandish small boats policy.
On Monday morning, Yusuf was doing the press rounds where he outlined Reform UK’s policy to deploy the Royal Navy in the English Channel to push back small boating crossings.
This was in the wake of Andy Burnham saying his government would be “relentless” in bringing down the number of crossings.
During a visit to Dover on Sunday, Burnham told the media the government was “changing the whole approach,” and pointed to an increase in enforcement officers on both sides of the Channel as one of the ways the issue is being tackled, whilst also calling for more safe and legal routes to “take away the selling point of the gangs.”
Reform don’t like the sound of this though, and instead want a much more drastic measure to be implemented: using the navy in the Channel to deter crossings.
Speaking to Radio 4’s Today programme, Yusuf said Reform would order the navy to force small boats carrying migrants back to France, saying it would be “the largest military operation in the English Channel since World War Two”.
But it was pointed out to Yusuf by presenter Amol Rajan that this was much easier said than done. He asked Yusuf about the practicalities of such an operation, given and what would happen if France refuse to accept small boats.
A similar argument was put to Yusuf on BBC Breakfast, where presenter Jon Kay pointed out that international maritime law means migrants can’t simply be returned to a nation.
On both occasions, Yusuf had little answer.
Meanwhile, retired Royal Navy commander Tom Sharpe told the Today programme Reform’s plans ‘lack quite a lot of substance.’
He pointed out that the Border Force effectively are already doing what Reform would deploy the Navy for, adding that warships designed for anti-submarine defences “are not best used for ferrying people around”.
Reform’s response to this justified scrutiny of their policy? To make cries of bias against them from the BBC.
Addressing Sharpe’s criticism, Yusuf wrote in a post on X: “The BBC just brought a credentialed talking head onto Radio 4 to attack the details of Reform’s plan to defend the Channel. He got every detail wrong.”
Sharing Yusuf’s post, Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice said that the BBC “hate Reform.”
He wrote: “Everything they do, say and write is designed to discredit us. They have become a joke.”
A reminder that all that happened during Yusuf’s BBC appearances is he was asked how Reform would enforce their policy, given the real-world obstacles it will almost certainly come up against.
Yet further proof that they can’t stand up to the slightest bit of scrutiny or questioning.
Someone else who cast doubt on the realism of Reform’s small boats policy was Tory MP and former British Army Officer Ben Obese-Jecty.
Like Sharpe, he asked what the navy would do differently to Border Force, labelling the policy “ridiculous.”