A plan put forward by Britain’s right-wing Reform UK party to deploy the navy to intercept and return asylum seekers arriving by boat has triggered a dispute with France. Reform leader Nigel Farage, who is under political pressure at home over a series of financial scandals and faces a by-election in just more than a week, characterised the mission dubbed “Operation Fortress” not as pushbacks but as “rescue and return”. He argued that, per its humanitarian nature, the measure would not breach international law, as stated by the French Ministry of the Interior. Pointing to the arrival of thousands of migrants in Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta, Farage on Monday pledged, if elected, to stop a similar “invasion” by launching the largest military operation in the English Channel since World War II. He said the measure would ensure that people are “immediately returned to their point of departure”. Responding to France, Reform said: “We will always stand up for British interests and protect our people, whether [President] Emmanuel Macron likes it or not.” Zia Yusuf, Reform UK’s spokesperson for home affairs, claimed France “sent us 200,000 illegal migrants, including murderers and terrorists”, and that marines would return them anyway to the French coast. Sarah Singer, professor of refugee law at the University of London, described the plan as a “complete waste of military resources”. While returning asylum seekers could be read as an “act of aggression” by France, it would also run counter to international law, said Singer. “Summary expulsions are contrary to UK and European law, which requires those seeking protection to have their cases individually assessed to determine if they can safely be removed,” the lecturer told Al Jazeera. Sarah Wolff, professor in international studies and global politics at Leiden University, noted that while military boats had worked in the past – the Italian Navy mission Mare Nostrum that operated between 2013 and 2014, which had medical facilities on board, was said to have saved tens of thousands of lives and allowed for asylum applications to be processed in Italy – Reform UK’s scheme would instead “return migrants back to France and not take any responsibility for processing asylum applications”, making it equivalent to a pushback. Before exiting the European Union in 2020, the UK had been able to return asylum seekers to the country of first entry under the Dublin Convention, which established the rule of first entry to avoid multiple asylum claims. “Now, it has no means to return them back to an EU country,” Wolff told Al Jazeera. “So it is a bit ironic that (Reform UK, then known as the Brexit Party) which campaigned at the time to ‘gain back control’ is now offering solution to a post-Brexit migration situation it contributed to create.”
