In an interview with TalkTV, Robert Jenrick, a Reform UK MP who defected from the Conservatives, said the party would deploy the Royal Marines to take boats back to France. "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 said.
Speaking on LBC, Farage rejected the suggestion that Reform would authorise routine use of force, saying it would be used only if soldiers were fired at, and that Jenrick was being "utterly misconstrued".
"Anybody wearing British military uniform who gets fired at has the right to respond. That's what he was saying," Farage said. He described the crossings as the work of "very, very serious international criminal organisations" and said a Reform government would "pick these people up and take them back to France". He predicted that "within two weeks of boats being taken back to France, the boats will stop coming."
Jenrick had earlier said allowing the use of force would end the problem "in just a few days", while adding that force was "obviously not what we want to see happen" and that migrants should be "picked up off the boats in a sensible and reasonable way, and taken straight back to France."
Defence minister Luke Pollard condemned the comments as "disgusting and illegal", telling Times Radio that the armed forces could not accept "an illegal order". "We do not shoot unarmed civilians. We do not take military action against civilians," he said. Pollard accused Reform of using the idea as a "soundbite designed to distract from their sleaze and their scandal", saying it was "abhorrent to military values, abhorrent to British values."