Reform’s plan to use the military to turn back small boats has run into a former Royal Navy commander who says it doesn’t survive contact with reality.
Reform calls it Project Fortress: a joint command combining the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, RAF and British Army, set up to track incoming boats and send them back to France and Belgium. The party says it’ll be “the largest military operation in the English Channel since World War Two” if Reform wins the next election.
Why a former commander says it won’t work
Tom Sharpe told Radio 4’s Today the whole plan “starts to unravel quite quickly.” His core problem: the Navy doesn’t have the ships. “There’s a notion that the Royal Navy could steam in over the horizon and fix this problem, which is declining slightly anyway. The reality, when you start looking at what ships we have, which is basically none. He’s talking about the largest maritime operation in the Channel since World War 2, a very evocative image, but that’s not the reality. We don’t have the ships. And if you do bring your ships to bear, and you start investigating what exactly you’re going to do with them and where, it starts to unravel quite quickly.”
He also pointed out that Border Force already does what Reform wants the military for, and that warships aren’t built for the job anyway. “A billion pound warship that’s configured for anti-air warfare or anti-submarine warfare, which are both threats to the UK, is not best used ferrying people around. You’re better off using an actual ferry.”
Then there’s France. Any turnback policy needs French cooperation, and Sharpe isn’t convinced that’s coming: “It needs their total approval, which I don’t think we’ll get. Brutally, why would we?”
Yusuf hit back on X
Zia Yusuf posted: “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. They then had to admit on air he HAD NOT EVEN READ our plan (it’s only being published at 11am). Incredible.”
That’s fair as far as it goes, the full policy hadn’t been published when Sharpe was interviewed. It doesn’t actually address his central claim, that the Royal Navy currently doesn’t have enough ships for an operation this size, which is a fact about fleet numbers rather than a detail of Reform’s specific plan.
What Reform is actually promising
Farage and Yusuf unveiled the policy properly at a press conference on Monday. Yusuf’s framing: “Britain is being invaded. Tory and Labour governments responded with a free ferry service and free hotels. Reform UK will respond by launching the largest military operation in the English Channel since World War Two. Nigel Farage will order His Majesty’s Royal Navy to ensure that not a single unauthorised vessel crossing the English Channel makes it to the shores of the United Kingdom. Those who attempt it will be intercepted by our Armed Forces and returned to France.”
Labour says it’s a reheated distraction
Labour’s response wasn’t really about the policy’s substance either. A spokesperson said: “Reform have reheated an old announcement in their latest desperate bid to distract from their growing sleaze scandals. Anger and easy answers won’t bring crossings down. The serious action we’ve taken have started to have a real impact and has led to 46,000 attempted crossings stopped, and 70,000 people with no right to be here removed. We know there’s more to do on this complex issue. What is far less complicated is Nigel Farage’s brazen attempts to dodge scrutiny over his secret £5 million gift from a crypto billionaire. It’s time he stopped the distraction tactics and came clean with the public.”
The “reheated” claim checks out, Farage had already announced a version of this policy earlier in the year. And the timing genuinely is awkward for Reform. The weekend’s Sunday Times investigation revealed Farage struck a secret deal to return as Reform’s leader in March and April 2024, supervised by George Cottrell, months before he’s always claimed he considered coming back. That directly undermines his defence for not declaring the £5m gift from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, which remains under a paused parliamentary standards investigation.
Reform figures keep reaching for the same deflection
Asked directly on BBC Breakfast about the leadership talks story, Zia Yusuf didn’t deny it, calling it “litigated” and saying it matters less than “the invasion of our country.” Robert Jenrick did almost exactly the same thing days earlier when pressed three times on George Cottrell transferring more than $2m to his mother before her donations to Reform, giving the same non-answer each time and pivoting to attack the parliamentary standards process itself.
Andy Burnham has separately pledged to be “relentless” on stopping small boat crossings, putting the government’s own record directly up against whatever Reform announces at its press conference. Whether Project Fortress amounts to more than a slogan built around ships the Navy doesn’t currently have is the actual question. So far, nobody from Reform has answered it, they’ve just pointed out Sharpe hadn’t read the paperwork yet.
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