Reform UK Members of Parliament are reiterating their claim ahead of the party’s conference that migrants who are stopped while crossing the English Channel can be returned to France. Nigel Farage, the party’s leader, and Richard Tice, the party’s chairman, both claimed that the United Kingdom is legally entitled to do so. However, no evidence has been found to support this assertion, according to BBC Verify.
Tice recently tweeted that the UK has the legal right to employ the 1982 UN Convention of Law at Sea to pick up and return migrants. Farage, on the other hand, claimed that returning migrants to France would be part of Reform’s strategy for people crossing the Channel in small boats. He stated in Question Time in June that “we’ll pick them up in the Channel and take them back”, and that if necessary, he would call on the Royal Marines to assist with the operation.
Maritime law experts James M. Turner and Ainhoa Campàs Velasco were consulted by BBC Verify. They both stated that express permission from France would be required for the UK to transport rescued persons through French territorial waters to return them to the French coast. There is no formal agreement between the UK and France that allows this, despite the 2019 joint action plan signed between the two countries to tackle illegal migration across the Channel.
Belgium has been cited by Richard Tice as proof that returning migrants is legal; however, the Belgian Federal Police have dismissed this notion, stating that “this is not correct” when questioned by BBC Verify
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