Bolton mocks Reform Navy plan and backs Restore's Coastal Command
Restore Britain's Henry Bolton says the Royal Navy should not police the Channel, setting out his party's alternative to Reform's Operation Fortress.
Henry Bolton has mocked Reform UK's plan to use the Royal Navy against small boats, saying a Restore Britain government would create a separate Coastal Command instead.
Mr Bolton wrote on X at 22:39 BST on Sunday 11th October: "Reform UK say they'll use the Royal Navy to stop the boats. Good luck with that. We don't have one. You're going to have to do what Restore Britain will do first - Restore the Royal Navy."
He added: "But we in Restore Britain wouldn't use the Royal Navy for policing borders. We'll use Coastal Command - see the attached video."
In the attached video, Mr Bolton says: "Other parties might grab tough sounding ideas about deploying the Royal Navy. We will not. The Navy has its own job to do."
He says responsibility for guarding the borders is "fragmented, incoherent and ineffective". Coastal Command, he says, would have "the vessels, surveillance, intelligence capabilities and the enforcement laws to guard our maritime borders around the clock". If Britain faced a military threat, he says, it would "reinforce the Royal Navy, not draw on it".
Ten minutes earlier, at 22:29 BST, Mr Bolton posted a clip of Nigel Farage saying it was a "political impossibility to deport hundreds of thousands of people. We simply can't do it." Mr Bolton wrote: "Restore Britain doesn't think so. Under Restore Britain millions would go." The clip did not say when Mr Farage's remarks were made.
What Restore proposes
The plan comes from Restore's paper Restoring Britain's Maritime Domain, published on 24th September, which Mr Bolton co-wrote with Rupert Lowe. It says: "All too often, politicians seek an easy answer and look to the Royal Navy. That is the wrong answer."
The paper proposes:
- A new Coastal Command for surveillance, patrol, interception, fisheries enforcement, search and rescue and pollution response at sea, run through the Home Office in peacetime.
- Bringing together Border Force maritime units, HM Coastguard and fisheries-protection vessels.
- Staff holding the office of constable, plus an armed Maritime Intervention Group for high-risk operations.
- About 5,000 paid personnel, 23 primary patrol vessels and 30 fast or inshore craft at full capability by year four.
- Net extra running costs of about £0.9 billion to £1 billion a year.
- Transfer to Royal Navy control in war.
Reform's plan
Reform launched Operation Fortress on 3rd August. In KentOnline on Monday, Mr Farage wrote that "the Armed Forces and the Royal Navy will be deployed to secure our borders", with a "naval-led joint forces command" intercepting migrants and returning them "right back to France and Belgium".
The Guardian reported in August that Reform's document envisaged navy offshore patrol vessels instead of Border Force's "five cutters and six patrol ships". It said the three offshore patrol vessels deployed around the UK were due to be decommissioned in 2028.
Mr Farage and Zia Yusuf set out Reform's asylum plans at a live event from 11:00 BST on Monday. Coverage seen by this site did not report any new Navy announcement. Reform's asylum plan is covered separately: restorenews.grok.me/story/734ac4871c8b
Sources
Image: Ian Balcombe, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons