Many schemes to stop small boat crossings in the Channel have been considered by UK governments in recent years, from the Rwanda policy to “wave-machines”. Here are four of them.
Rwanda
In April 2022 the Conservative government set out plans to send tens of thousands of asylum seekers to Rwanda to have their claims processed, with costs including an initial payment of £120m. The first flight in June, which is believed to have had seven people onboard, was cancelled minutes before takeoff, after the European court of human rights in Strasbourg issued last-minute injunctions to stop it.
In November 2023, the supreme court ruled the Rwanda policy was unlawful because there had not been a proper assessment of whether the country was safe. Britain and Rwanda signed a new treaty on asylum and the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 subsequently declared Rwanda a safe country.
One of the first acts of the Labour government was to scrap the scheme. Only four volunteering migrants had gone to Rwanda. Yvettte Cooper, the home secretary, told MPs in July last year the scheme had cost £700m.
The south Atlantic
Plans to send people who arrived on small boats to Ascension Island in the south Atlantic were re-examined in 2023, in case the Rwanda policy failed.
Research in 2020 found it would cost £1m per person sent to Ascension Island. Photograph: Uwe Moser/Alamy
The idea was first mooted in 2020, but dropped because “it was just thought to be impossibly expensive to do”, according to Jacob Rees-Mogg, who was a cabinet minister when the idea was first considered. “Unfortunately it would cost at least £1m per person you sent there,” he told Times Radio.
The 2020 plan was described as “implausible” by a Home Office source. Asked why it was being considered again in 2023, the Home Office minister Sarah Dines told Sky News: “Well, times change … This crisis in the Channel is urgent, we need to look at all possibilities and that is what we are doing.”
Blockade
The then home secretary, Sajid Javid, promised to provide two extra Border Force cutters, bringing the total to five, to patrol the Channel in 2019.
The following year, Priti Patel said she intended to use the navy to block boats before they entered British waters. One defence official described the idea as “completely potty” and the French government, whose consent would be needed, had already said it would be illegal.
The Home Office also set out plans to buy two jet skis to help with patrols, the Times reported. Trials took place in 2020 to test a blockade similar to Australia’s controversial “turn back the boats” tactic, according to official documents seen by the Guardian at the time.
The document read: “Trials are currently under way to test a ‘blockade’ tactic in the Channel on the median line between French and UK waters, akin to the Australian ‘turn back’ tactic, whereby migrant boats would be physically prevented (most likely by one or more UK RHIBs [rigid hull inflatable boats]) from entering UK waters.”
Wave machines and floating walls
Among “blue-sky” ideas Home Office officials reportedly considered, and dismissed, in 2020 was the creation of “wave machines” in the Channel. Boats with pumps would create waves that would force the small boats back into French waters, a source told the Financial Times.
But the proposal risked tipping migrants out of packed, often unseaworthy dinghies and boats into one of the most dangerous and busiest shipping lanes in the world.
The UK government also launched a consultation with the maritime industry to explore the construction of floating walls in the Channel, according to the Financial Times.
An email from the trade body Maritime UK, obtained by the FT, revealed that the idea of floating barriers was being seriously pursued by Home Office officials. Maritime UK said at the time it had informed the Home Office that it did not think the proposal was “legally possible”.
Migrants crossing to the US from Mexico walk past a floating border. The UK considered constructing floating walls in the Channel. Photograph: Eric Gay/AP
Downing Street said it did not recognise some of the more outlandish reporting – including the possibility of a wave machine. “These things won’t be happening,” a spokesperson told the Guardian at the time. The Home Office concluded “marine fencing” would not work.
