Defence Readiness Minister Luke Pollard has condemned proposals by Robert Jenrick to use "lethal force" against migrants in the Channel, describing them as "illegal and disgusting". The comments came after Mr Jenrick, Reform UK's pick to be Chancellor, said Royal Marines should be deployed to the Channel and allowed to use lethal force if needed.
Minister's response
Speaking on Times Radio on Tuesday morning, Mr Pollard said: "That's disgusting and illegal. Our Royal Navy are not allowed, as all armed forces are, to accept an illegal order. We do not shoot unarmed civilians. We do not take military action against civilians."
Mr Pollard accused Reform UK of trying to distract from the "sleaze and scandal" engulfing the party, and claimed the policy went against British values. He added: "The idea of this, when you extend from the soundbite designed by Reform to distract from their sleaze and the scandal, designed to take away attention on where the £5 million came from for Nigel Farage, when you go into the detail of this, it is abhorrent to British military values."
Backlash and context
The former Tory MP was already facing a furious backlash over the comments, including from Lord Alf Dubs, a Labour peer who fled the Nazis as a child. Mr Jenrick, who was a Home Office minister under Rishi Sunak, had told Talk TV: "What we are going to do, and we're the only political party that has the courage to say this, is deploy the Royal Marines into the Channel. If they need to use lethal force, then they'll be able to do so."
He added: "That's obviously not what we want to see happen. We want to see these individuals picked up off the boats in a sensible and reasonable way, and taken straight back to France. But I think the problem would come to an end very, very quickly, within a matter of days."
Mr Jenrick previously provoked outrage after it emerged he ordered murals of Mickey Mouse and Tom and Jerry to be removed at a Dover asylum centre to make it less welcoming to children. The controversy comes as Nigel Farage unveiled his plans to close the UK to asylum seekers, leading to criticism from religious leaders and human rights campaigners.
