British plan for nets to snag migrant boats

Nets could be used to stop migrants in dinghies from crossing the Channel to England.

Border Force officials unload migrants intercepted in the English Channel in Dover last month. Picture: Getty Images

Nets could be used to stop migrants in dinghies from crossing the Channel to England, according to a former Royal Marine appointed to halt such arrivals.

Dan O’Mahoney, the Home Office’s clandestine channel threat commander, said authorities were close to being able to use nets as part of a “safe-return tactic” under which migrants were taken back to France on British vessels. The tactic was designed to make boats inoperable, Mr O’Mahoney said, but it was being held up by France’s refusal to accept intercepted migrants.

In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Mr O’Mahoney detailed a plan designed to stem the flow of migrants to the UK. It would use social media campaigns to dissuade undocumented migrants from trying to cross the Channel and ask British officials posted abroad to urge them to claim asylum in the first safe country in which they arrive.

“What we are saying is … you will pass through multiple safe countries with perfectly civilised and functioning asylum systems,” he said. “Rather than paying huge amounts of money for facilitators to move you across Europe through all of these safe countries, and then risk your life in an incredibly dangerous journey, claim asylum in the first safe country that you come to.”

He said the authorities were “exploring tactics” to turn back migrants, with daily clandestine arrivals exceeding 300. “We definitely are close to being able to operationalise a tactic where we make an intervention safely on a migrant vessel, take migrants on board our vessel and then take them back to France,” he said.

Asked if the method was the same as the approach tested by the Royal Navy in which nets were used to clog boat propellers, he said: “It’s that type of thing, yes,” adding it was one of several methods “which we may deploy over the next few months”.

There had been speculation that measures under consideration included using water cannons to push back boats and moving claimants to disused passenger ferries moored offshore or thousands of miles away on the south Atlantic islands of Ascension or St Helena.

Mr O’Mahoney, who said ­facilities for processing asylum seekers were under “significant pressure”, insisted his priority was to save the lives of those attempting the crossing, followed by securing the UK border.

Nick Thomas-Symonds, Labour’s shadow home secretary, said: “Asylum processing centres thousands of miles away, prison ships, wave machines and now nets — the Tories’ proposals on Channel crossings are unconscionable, and (they are) putting lives at risk.”

The Times