Zia Yusuf calls for Royal Navy blockade after 140 asylum seekers arrive in Portsmouth

Zia Yusuf said Reform would ensure the Royal Navy would not let “one unauthorised vessel” reach Britain following recent asylum seeker arrivals in Portsmouth.

The Reform UK spokesperson for home affairs visited Eastney to speak to the media about the recent arrival of asylum seekers who crossed the English Channel from Normandy in a small boat.

The arrival sparked a protest, with around 500 people attempting to block coaches transporting the asylum seekers to a processing centre in Kent.

Asked about his initial reaction to reports of the arrivals, which began last night and continued into the early hours today, Mr Yusuf said “shock” and “anger”.

He said it was the “first time I’ve seen the state offer a police escort to men who are invading Britain, and I use my words advisedly there.”

Mr Yusuf argued that previous governments had given up on their “prime responsibility” to protect and defend Britain.

He described the arrivals, who appeared to be predominantly men, as “invading” the country and said this left British people “completely defenceless”.

He also claimed that men of Afghan nationality are “order of magnitude” more likely to committee sex crimes than British national and that Afghans are “one of the most prevalent nationalities on those boats”.

Available data on nationality and sexual offences has limitations, meaning comparisons between conviction rates for different nationalities can be difficult to interpret.

Mr Yusuf said he had sympathy with people who might feel “terrified” or “hopeless” about the issue, “especially if they have children”.

He said the public had been “extremely angry about it for a long time, that’s why the Tories were dumped out of office in 2024” because they “refused to protect our borders”.

Mr Yusuf said that if Reform UK leader Nigel Farage became Prime Minister, his first call “will be to the first sealord to order the navy to maintain a hard perimeter and ensure that not one unauthorised vessel makes it to our shores.”

He added that migrants already in the UK would be detained and deported back to their country of origin.

Reform UK’s Operation Fortress policy has been criticised by former naval officers and migration experts, with concerns raised about the practicality and safety of using the Royal Navy to intercept small boats.

Critics have argued that naval vessels are not well suited to intercepting small, overcrowded dinghies, while forcibly returning passengers could raise legal, safety and diplomatic issues, particularly if France refused to accept them.

Responding to those criticisms, Mr Yusuf said the policy was “literally drafted by former members of his Majesty’s armed forces, including former senior members of his Majesty’s Royal Navy. It has been endorsed by former senior members of his Majesty’s armed forces, their names are in the document.

“So not only is the plan as they say viable It is necessary in order that our Armed Forces actually have something to defend in generations to come.”

The Government has described the protest at Eastney as involving “intimidating and thuggish behaviour” as demonstrators attempted to blockade a road.

Asked about the description, given Reform UK has previously criticised similar road-blocking tactics used by groups including Just Stop Oil, Mr Yusuf said he believed it was “thuggish and intimidating” for Andy Burnham’s government to “impose, through state force, Illegal migrants unvetted men into local communities without their consent without their permission.

“We know that British people including British women have been raped and murdered by people coming across the channel illegally by boat. We’ve got to take this seriously as a national security emergency.

“And I want to say this, if you continue to do this, to any human beings in the world, the response from those communities is going to be helplessness and yes, anger.”

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) has also faced criticism for rescuing the asylum seekers from their dinghy south of the Isle of Wight and transferring them to Portsmouth.

Mr Yusuf said that “everyone involved in doing this” including the state, which he argued is “facilitating this illegal migration”, needs to “take a long look at themselves”.

He also criticised the UK’s Border Force, saying its name would imply “they’re there to enforce our border and what they’re doing is picking them up and bringing them here – I don’t know what to describe that as other than a taxi service.”

Simon Magorian of Portsmouth Stand Up to Racism accepted the description of the protest as “thuggish”.

“They’re very keen on talking about refugees coming here as an invasion which it isn’t but what happened last night was an invasion, they were coming as far as the north of England.

“They came out wearing paramilitary gear, wearing face coverings, if you’ve got face coverings it’s normally because you’ve got criminal convictions or you want to get involved in criminal conduct and i think that was pretty clear from their behaviour.”

Mr Magorian highlighted Danny ‘Tommo’ Thomas, who took part in the protest and has previous criminal convictions.

“The guy is a thug”, he claimed, arguing that Mr Thomas’s group ‘Patriot Platform’, which he described as a “neo-fascist grouping”.

Mr Thomas was also among a group of 10 extremists banned from France in January, according to French authorities at the time.

Mr Magorian said: “It’s not a protest, if you’re protesting you actually identify yourself as a protester, you don’t hide your identity – they look like the Islamic state for God’s sake, not a British protest party.”