Minister rejects Trump’s call for military to tackle illegal migration

The UK military is focused on defending the nation rather than stopping asylum seekers from crossing the Channel, a cabinet minister has said.

US President Donald Trump suggested that military intervention could be used to deal with illegal migration to the UK during his state visit this week.

But Trade Secretary Peter Kyle has rejected that call, telling BBC Breakfast the UK Border Force has specific responsibility for policing UK borders.

Hundreds of migrants attempted to cross the Channel earlier on Friday, as the second deportation under the government’s “one in, one out” deal with France took place.

Six boats are believed to have set off from northern France, as the smugglers made the most of a break in the windy weather in the Channel. There had been no crossings for a week before then due to choppy seas.

People were then seen being taken from the Port of Dover by coach, including two small children.

On Friday morning, an Eritrean man became the second migrant to be deported under the government’s deal with France, after he lost a High Court bid to halt his removal.

The Home Office tightened the rules around human trafficking claims to win that case.

On Friday afternoon, Home Office sources said an Iranian male had also been returned to France after crossing the Channel in a small boat.

Speaking at a press conference at Chequers on Thursday, Trump suggested military force was a better deterrent than the Labour government’s approach of diplomatic negotiations agreeing returns and toughening up court guidance.

Speaking alongside Sir Keir Starmer at the prime minister’s country residence Chequers, Trump suggested such force was needed as illegal migration “destroys countries from within”.

He said: “You have people coming in and I told the prime minister I would stop it, and it doesn’t matter if you call out the military, it doesn’t matter what means you use.”

Asked about the US president’s claims, Kyle told BBC Breakfast: “Well, what he suggested was the military are used, but we have the UK Border Force that is now established and has been reinforced and bolstered and have new powers under this government.

“The navy actually does have a working relationship with the UK Border Force, and the navy can be called upon if needed, so we do have the functional relationship that we need between our military and keeping our borders safe and secure.

“But what we really need at the moment is our military focused on all of those really key issues around the world, directly relating to our national defence.”

Shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge dismissed Trump’s suggestion that military could be used to cut illegal migration, saying it would be “extremely complicated”.

He told BBC Look East that “we have a border force…we need a deterrent” and cited the Conservative government’s Rwanda plan, which he said would have been “extremely effective”.

The Supreme Court ruled that the African country could not be considered to be safe at all, because of human rights abuses, and the plan was scrapped almost immediately after Labour took office last year.

Trump has issued a series of executive orders implementing a broad ban on asylum for migrants entering at the southern US border and has sent in troops to assist border security efforts.

The arrests of migrants by the US Border Patrol have been decreasing since Trump took office.

The Conservatives and Reform UK are calling for tougher action on migration, with Reform saying it would bar anyone who comes to the UK on small boats from claiming asylum.

Neither party has proposed using military force, although Nigel Farage has said a Reform government would tow small boats back to France “as an absolute last resort”.

The Ministry of Defence recently said that military assets had been bought “for defence tasks” and were “not optimised” to be used in tackling illegal migration.

General Sir Richard Barrons, a former commander of UK Joint Forces Command, cautioned that the involvement of the British military would be limited by the “very different geography” involved in migration flows.

Speaking to The World Tonight on BBC Radio 4, he added: “I don’t think France is going to be very enthusiastic about British troops on French beaches, unless they were very carefully co-ordinated.”

He added that the military was unlikely to “add very much” to existing efforts to spot boats using commercial drones.

“When migrants arrive in the UK, the Home Office has a system for gathering them up and the military would add manpower to that but they’re not going to make the problem any different.”

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has vowed to fight what she called “vexatious, last-minute claims” and Kyle described her as “straining at the bit” to make sure the pilot one-in-one-out scheme for migrant returns was a success.

“We’re making sure we get as many people as don’t have the right to be here returned as swiftly as possible,” he said, adding there are “a lot of cases” going through court.

Asked whether there was any target figure for the number of returns, Kyle said: “Our target is to make sure that everybody who comes to our shore and doesn’t have the right to stay is removed from the country, that is our target.

“We want to get a full grip on the system, we want to make sure people see a functioning system that’s delivering so rapidly, efficiently and swiftly that people don’t come here in the first place, that’s the deterrent that we need.”

About 100 men who arrived in the UK by small boat are currently in immigration removal centres near Heathrow and may be removed to France under the scheme.

The Home Office said more deportation flights are planned into next week and a government appeal has been launched, aimed at limiting the time migrants have to provide evidence to challenge their removal.

More than 5,500 migrants have reached the UK since the scheme came into effect at the start of August but the government is hoping continuing removal flights will act as a deterrent.