Getty ImagesAhead of the party conference, Reform Britain MPs have been reiterating their claim that migrants intercepted while crossing the English Channel could be brought back to France.
This is part of the party Four-point plan to “stop the ship”.
Party leader Nigel Farage and deputy leader Richard Tice both claimed Britain had the legal right to do so.
But BBC verify found no evidence that this was the case.
What did they say?
At the beginning of this month, Richard Theis tweeted: “Starmer needs to explain why he doesn’t have the leadership and courage to use the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to pick up and take back”.
Nigel Farage told BBC Radio Kent on September 19 that part of Reform’s plan for migrants crossing the Channel in small boats was to “bring them back to France”.
“We will pick them up in the English Channel and take them back” to France, he told Question Time in June.
He said he would use the Royal Marines to complete the task if necessary.
But it’s unclear how the reforms would do this without violating international law.
What does the law say?
according to United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and International Convention on Maritime Search and Rescue (SAR Convention)states can pick people up from boats if they are “found at risk of missing at sea.”
But those laws don’t allow them to be taken to another state without that country’s consent.
In fact, Article 19 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea stipulates that if a “foreign ship” enters the territorial waters of another country, it will be deemed to be endangering the peace if “it engages in acts that violate the regulations… loading or unloading any person.” Immigration Law”.
BBC verify spoke to two maritime law experts.
Shipping lawyer James M. Turner KC of Quadrant Chambers told us: “France must expressly allow British ships to carry rescued persons through its territorial waters and keep them on French shores.”
Ayjoa Campas-Velasco, a maritime law expert at the University of Southampton, said migrants could not return to French shores “unilaterally” without a prior agreement with France.
There is no such agreement between Britain and France.
Both countries agree 2019 Joint Action Planwhich does provide cooperation, but it does not allow one country to bring people rescued in the English Channel to another country’s ports.
Richard Theis has repeatedly claimed he had been told it was legal, but we did not respond to a request to see the advice.
We asked the Home Office and French authorities whether the UK had the legal right to pick up people and return them to France, but they did not comment.
have Once in July A British Border Force vessel was called in to assist with a search and rescue operation off the coast of Gravelines in northern France.
Both the British ship and the French ship involved took the rescued people to Calais.
Mr Turner explained that this happened because British ships were assisting French rescue operations and were entering French waters with French permission.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer stressed that this was an operational decision taken at the time and not a change of policy.
2021, UK government considers repatriating small boats Intercepted in the English Channel, but the plan was never carried out.
Is Belgium doing this?
ReutersSeptember 3, Richard Tice said On his policy of taking people intercepted by boats directly back to France: “We know this is legal because the Belgian authorities have done it.”
BBC Verify spoke to Belgian police in May when the claim was first made, and they confirmed they intercepted the boat as a “rescue operation”.
But they said the ships rarely cross the UK from the Belgian coast because the distance and strong currents make the crossing very dangerous.
We raised the claim that Belgian authorities had brought migrants back to France to the Belgian Federal Police, who told us “this is untrue”.
