Good morning and welcome to our coverage of UK politics. Reform UK is today pledging to use the Royal Navy to stop small boat crossings if the party wins the next general election.
The boats in the channel would be intercepted by the Navy and returned to France or Belgium under a plan called “operation fortress”.
The party proposes to set up a joint military command with units from the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, RAF and British army as well as a surveillance command to track incoming boats.
Similar proposals have been suggested by the Conservatives before, but never materialised due to concerns around legality and the potential flouting of international treaties.
Last Wednesday was the busiest day for small boat crossings across the Channel so far this year, with 752 people arriving in the UK, as the Guardian’s political correspondent, Alexandra Topping, notes in this story.
But official provisional figures indicate that 14,526 have entered the UK so far in 2026, 43% lower than the number recorded by this time last year (25,436) and down 14% on the same period in 2024 (16,903).
In reaction to Reform’s pledge, a Labour party spokesperson said Nigel Farage’s party “have reheated an old announcement in their latest desperate bid to distract from their growing sleaze scandals”.
Retired Royal Navy commander Tom Sharpe, meanwhile, suggested the proposal “lacks quite a lot of substance”. “We have the border force already to do this,” he told the BBC’s Today programme.
Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is losing support to Restore Britain. Photograph: James Veysey/ShutterstockFarage is fighting a byelection after resigning his seat of Clacton in an attempt to shake off a deepening donations scandal, including a revelation by the Guardian’s City editor, Anna Issac, that he had failed to declare a £5m gift from the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne.
All other mainstream parties have declined to stand a candidate against him, making a mockery of what Farage tried to frame as a “people versus the establishment” byelection. Farage is set to comfortably win the contest – but has gifted the political stage to the new government who have announced a raft of policies and been on a media blitz over recent weeks.
Reform UK’s increasingly hard-right policies and rhetoric come as it loses support to Restore Britain, a breakaway party even further to the right which is led by former Reform MP Rupert Lowe.
Lowe has been a thorn in Farage’s side since he was stripped of the Reform party whip last year after being accused of bullying and making alleged threats against the then party chair, Zia Yusuf, claims that he denies.
In a surprise move over the weekend, Lowe extended an olive branch to Farage, offering him a deal to unite the so-called “patriotic right” of British politics, as Andy Burnham improves Labour’s polling and aims to win back some of the same voters Reform UK is targeting.
In a statement not explicitly mentioning the offer from Restore or Rupert Lowe’s name, Farage said he recognised the need to accept support from other parties and said Reform has “always been open to anyone”.
Farage will appear at a press conference in Westminster alongside Zia Yusuf, Reform’s home affairs spokesperson, from 11am. He will likely be asked about the potential Reform-Restore pact, his Royal Navy policy and his finances.
