Why Reform is hardening its position on small boats

0:01Sky News, the full story first.

0:11Reform is putting small boats back on the political agenda. And this is why.

0:22Hello, Ed Conway here. Here is what might sound like a slightly random question. What do AirPods, bananas and a pair of shoddily made running trainers from the 1970s have in common? On the surface, not very much. But on my podcast, Stuff Matters, I will uncover the deeper stories behind each of them. You will see how, together, they tell a fascinating new story about the world we live in. The first full series of Stuff Matters is out now. Just search for it on your podcast app and follow. Hello and welcome to another week of This Is Why. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage held a press conference today in which he announced a new policy idea to deploy the Royal Navy in the Channel to stop small boat crossings.

1:09But this isn't the first time Nigel Farage has floated the idea of using the Navy. In 2025, he said he wasn't completely ruling out the idea of sending dinghies back to France. Anyone that comes illegally is detained. Not free to walk the streets. So you're not pushing the boats back to France? No, no, I haven't said that. I've said that would be an absolute last resort. If it came to it, we'd do it. Today, he categorically ruled out pushing the small boats back, insisting his new policy idea is about escorting migrants back to France and Belgium as part of a humanitarian mission. Why do you clearly believe it can now be done in a safe way?

1:51No, no, no, stop, stop, stop. This is not pushback. Pushback is difficult and dangerous. Critics say reform's policy is unworkable and illegal, and an attempt to distract from ongoing questions about Nigel Farage's finances and a paused parliamentary investigation into the former MP. But with the Spanish government currently grappling a crisis in Suta, where tens of thousands of migrants entered the Spanish exclave within just 24 hours, reform clearly believed public opinion could shift in their favour. I'm joined by Alan Tolhurst, Chief Reporter at Politics Home. Alan, just explain to me what reform is promising.

2:38Well, they're essentially promising, I think, the largest maritime operation, I think, since the Second World War, an attempt to try and use the full might of the British Royal Navy to really tackle the small boats crisis, which we've seen kind of numbers coming down, but they're saying that's nowhere near effective enough. So what does that look like? They're talking about the Navy escorting people back to France. I mean, what's the detail of this policy? It's not a huge amount of detail. They want to create an integrated surveillance command, unify military and intelligence surveillance and making us the most surveilled maritime border in the world.

3:09But yes, you're also right in terms of what they will do physically is to turn back boats, take them back to into French waters and potentially back to the French beaches and to deposit people back onto the French land. How that will happen in practice, how likely the French are to accept that obviously is much to be discussed and obviously the legality of it as well. The maritime conventions that the UK is part of, that again is yet to be kind of to be decided as well. So they're saying that actually they're not going to be pushing boats back. They say that that can potentially be dangerous if the boat is much smaller, it can capsize the boat.

3:42So they're saying they would pick people up in the English Channel, take them onto the Navy ships and then take them back to France or back to Belgium. Do we think that's realistic? This has been looked at before no the royal navy had involvement with the border force between 2019 and 2023 and then it kind of ended and they didn't feel as though actually they really it was really much use for them and kind of the rules around the kind of use of engagement and force and how the royal navy is used obviously is a bit murky and i don't think the royal navy was particularly happy about it so i use it for saying look we would far rather disembark people in port walk them down a gangway and hand them to the french authorities properly but there is no suggestion at the moment that the French would be willing to accept that.

4:23He was saying that, look, if the Élysée Palace refuses, the Royal Marines will disembark them safely on the shore that they left. But, you know, how that would go in terms of our relationships with France, it seems very unlikely that we'd be able to get away with doing something like that if the French are against it. Dear Yusuf, and Reforma trying to say that, look, something needs to be done, and they are happy to fight the French over this. I don't think it's likely that the French, whoever is in charge in France by the time there is an election in this country and a potential reform government would be willing to accept this.

4:51And I think as well, you know, if you talk to kind of maritime legal experts, they say that actually this kind of policy would require perhaps removing ourselves from these kind of international conventions that we're part of. And again, would a government, even a reform government, really want to get involved in doing that sort of thing just to enact this particular aspect of the policy? So Alan, how new or fresh is this policy idea? Because Labour have come out and said that This is just reform, rehashing their old ideas to distract from some of their difficulties around bad headlines for Nigel Farage's finances, for instance.

5:26And the Tory party said that they looked at this previously when they were in government, but the legality was too difficult. So they didn't end up implementing something like this. Is this really that new? It's definitely been looked at multiple times. And we heard certainly from the right wing of the Conservative Party in the last parliament. there was an awful lot of those MPs who wanted to see the Home Office go further and use the military in this in this stuff and to push back and that was one of the one of the things that was seen as legally being very very difficult to implement and so therefore this kind of picking up people and taking them back but even that was kind of thrown out tossed aside because essentially France would not wear it I think it kind of shows how kind of reform want to kind of shift the narrative on this if you think about this time last year you know reform was still doing really well in in the polls and they were really kind of grasping the narrative by having these regular press conferences we haven't seen these regular press conferences from reform in recent months because of kind of the problems that Nigel Farage has been facing clearly they're looking to kind of test the waters and see if they can kind of get on the front foot again I think for the first time really in reforms history they've been in more of a defensive posture in kind of a crouch and defending themselves they're now looking to kind of to go on the attack and they see small boats as being one of their kind of key areas where they still have a lead over all the other parties and lead with that rather than kind of having to face these kind of defensive questions about kind of all the various financial problems that the party seems to find itself in.

6:47Well, let's talk about those problems for a second. I mean, let's look at the timing of this announcement. Reform, as you say, are going through some difficulties. They're having a lot of scrutiny and questions about their funding, about the parliamentary investigation that's been paused into Nigel Farage because he triggered that by-election in Clacton, for instance. how much of a mountain politically is reform facing at the moment yeah i mean i think it's facing its first real kind of big crisis it's sort of hit a ceiling on its support and as we know that even when there's kind of multi-party politics you still need to be around at least 30 percent to be in line to try and get a majority at an election they did a few times last year they've dropped back this kind of so-called burn and bounce obviously it's very early days and only a couple of polls i think it was interesting today that nigel farage was perhaps not as tetchy as he has been in some press conferences but he did still kind of get a bit annoyed with the questions in the Q &A about kind of his finances his his relationship with the aide George Cottrell and the various kind of other financial issues that reform are facing and it is kind of the first time they're facing this scrutiny that feels like there's quite an awful lot more to come we saw Richard Tice the deputy leader there's a new parliamentary investigation into him announced this morning about not declaring a particular interest so it does feel as though they're going to have to basically be able to get through this and show that they can face down these issues if they are to kind of to push on through ahead of that election and get towards that kind of figure and be able to ride the kind of burn and bounce and show they are still in position to form the next government.

8:15And Alan, when we're looking at the timing of this, do you think what we saw in Soutre, that area that is technically Spain, that borders Morocco, where we saw tens of thousands of people entering over the border or through the sea in a matter of 24 hours. Do you think that has anything to do with it or do you think this is just opportunistic timing? I think Reform had been planning to make a press conference around this new operation, Operation Fortress, for a good few days now. And I think also the fact that Andy Burnham was there in Dover at the weekend is also kind of helpful timing. I think they were always going to do it in the height of summer, because as we know, that is when the most likely we are to see these crossings.

8:56And although the crossings are down about 40 percent, I think, year on year at the moment, the last couple of weeks have seen a big uptick, obviously, with this very kind of calm and sunny weather that we're seeing. But as you say, it's kind of for them quite fortunate to have both the kind of the sweater situation and also Andy Burnham making it a focus of his of his policies and his announcements over the weekend as well. He said he wants to have a kind of laser focus on small boats crossings. He clearly sees that it is an electoral area that he needs to focus on. It's potentially a weak spot for Labour.

9:28Yeah, it's always been. They've always been targeted as being kind of so-called soft on immigration, having an open borders, that sort of thing. And I think Andy Benham obviously is by going out there, it was good visually for him to do. And he didn't kind of use this kind of same stock phrases. There was no kind of smash the gang, stop the boats kind of catchphrase. I think he knows that the public kind of don't really enjoy those, especially when what they see with their own eyes is not an ability to stop the boats or smash the gangs. But it does feel as though it's something that he's going to have to fix.

9:58Because I think, you know, if you look at the first week that he was in power, it was a lot of stuff that he could he could try and do in the short term that would have a kind of meaningful change early on. And then since then, he's tried to kind of make a start on the more knotty issues, things like social care and obviously the needs and education. And I think clearly immigration and the small boats is going to be one of those issues that he has to try and deal with in the long term. So getting a start on it now, it does pull focus towards it, which is one of the things that people are less confident about them doing.

10:25But the fact is that if he doesn't get it sorted now, if this allows reform to get to kind of punch that bruise, they'll find themselves in a bit of trouble on immigration.

10:40Hello, Ed Conway here. Here is what might sound like a slightly random question. What do AirPods, bananas and a pair of shoddily made running trainers from the 1970s have in common? On the surface, not very much. But on my podcast, Stuff Matters, I will uncover the deeper stories behind each of them. You will see how, together, they tell a fascinating new story about the world we live in. The first full series of Stuff Matters is out now. Just search for it on your podcast app and follow.

11:20reform have dropped a bit in the polls recently do you think this is the right strategy for them to try and restore their lead yeah i mean it's clearly an attempt to remind people who started backing reform in the first place why they were so drawn towards niger farage's party so it's an attempt to kind of to reframe where they are because a lot of the kind of negativity around Nigel Farage personally, a politics home, we work with Thinks Insight, a strategy company that looked at kind of potential Labour switches, potential Tory switches to reform. And actually, some of the ones who are kind of softly in favour, they did talk about Nigel Farage being a bit of a barrier towards that, that it was a bit of a one man ban.

11:56They liked some of the policies, but they weren't perhaps sure about Nigel Farage. And so I think this is an attempt by kind of foregrounding the issue rather than necessarily Farage himself to try and kind of win people back. And I suppose when we look at the polls at the moment. I mean, they're shifting all the time and we are so far from a general election that obviously we have to take it all with a pinch of salt. But I think the Reform Party would probably admit that they'd be disappointed with the fact that they're not maybe eating into the Tory vote as much as they like at the moment. If we look at the recent by-elections, the Greater Manchester Mayoral election, the Tories have been doing really, really badly.

12:32And a lot of talk in Westminster where you and I work is about how well that Kemi Baden-Ock is doing, that she's done she's doing better as a leader etc but the proof of that is how well they do when it comes to people actually putting that cross in the ballot box and in that sense the tories are still doing really really badly so i think i think reform are probably quite secure in things that they can they can squeeze out a lot of the tory vote i think where it's interesting is how much of the vote on the right they can squeeze from the other smaller parties the kind of parts on the right including restore who speaks people in reform they're not too worried about the tories they think this kind of this resurgence is a bit of a kind of a confected narrative well let's talk about Restore and Rupert Lowe, they took almost 9 % of the Manchester mayor by-election.

13:14Nigel Farage at that press conference today acknowledged that actually Restore was eating into their vote. So reform have been quite open about the fact that Restore is harming them electorally. This whole thing started with a constituency poll in Makerfield, which essentially put Restore, I think, was on 7 % or 9%. And that felt as though that could be the difference. Because if Andy Burnham was to win that by-election, the feeling was, was the gap between him and the reform candidate would be less than the amount of votes that Restore got. And therefore, Restore would be spoiling kind of reforms chances of winning.

13:46And in a general election, in lots of places up in the North and the Midlands, where Labour are looking to repeat their wins they did in 2024, that Restore would spoil reforms chances of victory in those places. Obviously, that didn't, it wasn't quite as close in the end as that. But clearly, as you say, the Manchester mayoral by-election shows that Restore can get up to close to kind of 10%. And And if they did do that in lots of seats across England, then they would really damage reform's chances. And so I think, you know, whereas Nigel Farage has been quite critical of the idea of a pact between reform and the Tories, he did seem a bit more open minded.

14:19He used that phrase in the press conference today. I think clearly, I think he also said that he deserves an apology from Rupert Lowe. Let's rewind for a minute and just explain what the beef is between Rupert Lowe and Nigel Farage. And Zia Youssef is actually involved, isn't he? They fell out pretty spectacularly early last year and Rupert Lowe was alleged to have kind of made threatening remarks and to have basically been, I think, in Nigel Farage's words today at the press conference, the screaming, the shouting, the threats, the legal writs, he said. And then basically Rupert Lowe left Reform as one of their MPs and started his own party earlier this year.

14:53And yeah, part of that was to do with his relationship with Zayah Yusuf. They apparently disagreed massively on points of policy. Like a lot of people who do fall out with Nigel Farage, Rupert Lowe's been kind of throwing a lot of darts back at Nigel Farage, calling him self-absorbed and a narcissist and been very, very critical of him and very critical of where reform have been going on policy. He's been wanting to see them move much further to the right on immigration, things like remigration, deportations, that sort of thing, which obviously reform has not been in favour of so far. And so it's kind of interesting to see him now reaching this potential, this olive branch.

15:24Yeah, I mean, Nigel Farage's tone in that press conference when he was asked many, many times about Rupert Lowe and Restore. And as you say, his tone had softened. He was more open minded. And even when Zia Yusuf was asked about his relationship with Rupert Lowe and whether he would feel threatened or whether he would feel unsafe if Rupert Lowe were to come back, Zia Yusuf basically said, look, you know, it's besides the point. So the mood music from reform seems to be this softening toward restore. The question really is whether they can actually work together. Rupert Lowe wants things like, you know, a referendum on the death penalty.

16:04He wants to ban the burqa and halal meat, things that, as you say, reform haven't yet said they want to do. And so is that gap just that little bit too wide between those parties and those two leaders? Yeah, I think so. I think at the moment, it's a long way from coming to some sort of agreement on things. But ultimately, Rupert Lowe knows that his power is in trying to spoil reform's chance of victory. And it's in that sense, what he can get in return for preventing that from happening. And so if he can drag reform into some of those, perhaps not all of them, into some of those policy areas and to get an agreement on those in order to perhaps stand down candidates.

16:40But it does feel as though, as you say, there is a bit of open dialogue between the two parties around this stuff. Alan, so where does this leave Farage now? What's his game plan going to be going forward, do you think? Well, look, he still has a by-election to win. And I think that a lot of people in reform felt that this big gamble would be able to kind of perhaps change the narrative. But we all know that Nigel Farage is still going to face the same questions around the five million donation and the funding by people around him. Those things aren't going to go away. But I suppose he gives himself a few weeks before that by-election, before those kind of questions are asked again, where he can perhaps try and shift the kind of narrative.

17:15So clearly, I think we're going to see a lot more from reform on this and an attempt by Nigel Farage to stop having to defend himself and questions around his own finances. It still remains to be seen how likely that is. I don't think the public are going to forget these questions are still swirling around Nigel Farage, but it is clearly an attempt by them for the first time to try and get out on that front foot. Don't forget to get in touch with your ideas for future episodes by emailing us at why at sky.uk. And this is why we'll be back tomorrow.

17:53Hello, Ed Conway here. Here is what might sound like a slightly random question. What do AirPods, bananas and a pair of shoddily made running trainers from the 1970s have in common? On the surface, not very much. But on my podcast, Stuff Matters, I will uncover the deeper stories behind each of them. You will see how together they tell a fascinating new story about the world we live in. The first full series of Stuff Matters is out now. Just search for it on your podcast app and follow.