Tucked away in a quiet corner of the Spectator magazine this month was a paragraph which imagined what Donald Trump would do if he were in charge of Britain’s inept attempts to stop small boats crossing the Channel.
A MAGA source said it would go something like this: “Tell the French that British intelligence officers and special forces will destroy the boats before they sail. Slash them with knives, use snipers. Burn down the warehouses of the gangs, use cyber to attack their communications.”
One of the most striking features of Trump 2.0 has been the administration’s willingness to stiffen the spines of weaker allies.
The White House has successfully scolded Europeans into spending more on NATO. Vice-President JD Vance has chided us for our lax attitude towards free speech and Islamism.
But, although the president told Keir Starmer at Chequers in September that Britain should “call out the military” to stop the boats, he has never entered into the specifics of how that might be done, at least not publicly.
Which is a pity. Because he would be worth listening to. Not just because of the searing honesty (on his State Visit to the UK, Trump said illegal migration “destroys countries from within”), but because he has earned the right to be heeded.
When it comes to reversing an ever-increasing flow of illegals, Trump has credibility. His critics said it couldn’t be done. But Trump sent in the army, took steps the Democrats and MSM could never countenance, and delivered on one of his key electoral promises.
So, even if it’s only a thought experiment, let us consider how this White House would turn illegal migrants back from the white cliffs of Dover.
In the 1990s, evangelical Christians in America started wearing wristbands emblazoned with the question: What would Jesus do?
It was a way of wondering out loud how a wiser person might find a way through a thicket of problems. At the risk of sounding sacrilegious, and when it comes to the small boats crisis, what would Trump do?
The first thing to say is that we are not comparing apples with apples. The Trump White House can get away with things we can’t, simply by dint of America’s superpower status. We cannot turn to the French, a country of similar global clout to the UK, and say: “Emmanuel, you are not doing nearly enough to stop the small boats, so we will. You may not like what we are about to do, but tough. There’s nothing you can do to stop us.”
Donald Trump has an ace up his sleeve to stop Britain's migrant crisis. We must let him play it - Colin Brazier | Getty Images
But as Trump proves time and again, it need not be necessary to play by the spirit of the rules-based international order to succeed.
So far, that system is letting us down. We play with a straight bat, whether that’s according to maritime law or refugee conventions.
The French, who could process asylum claims in France if they really wanted to, pay lip service to international obligations, then quietly wave illegals on their way to Britain. They have been doing so for years, which makes the MAGA view of what can be done so interesting.
That raft of ideas - using special forces, electronic warfare, black-ops - to disrupt traffickers in France would be ethically dubious, diplomatically tendentious, perhaps even technically illegal.
It might require our armed forces and intelligence services to operate by subterfuge in a foreign country. And not just any foreign country, but our closest neighbour and long-established ally.
But - again channelling the Trumpian spirit - what else can a government do when reduced to such a state of impotence by the failed promises of a supposed friendly power?
Paris has repeatedly shown that it is willing to take our money before making little more than a pantomime show of intervention on the beaches.
The truth is that there are some questions which touch on the very essence of what it is to be a functional state. And the British government has not hitherto shown the ingenuity, daring - even international effrontery - to halt this slow-motion catastrophe.
And make no mistake, the small boats invasion is an existential crisis for the UK. Tens of thousands of undocumented males are entering the country in ever-growing numbers, about whom we often know nothing.
Their intentions are as varied as their countries of origin. Some may be benign, seeking nothing more than a chance to work hard and improve their life chances (and make things better for family members to whom they send back remittances).
Others are adventurers, seeking treasure and women (the extent to which young men from repressed cultures come to Britain because it represents a Shangri-La of permissiveness should not be underestimated). And, of course, a small minority actively travel across the English Channel to undermine our way of life, be that through crime or terror.
Without a serious deterrent, their numbers will grow. The pull factor will be an enlarging diaspora of their countrymen now in the UK. The push factor will be the exploding demographics of countries in West Africa and parts of Asia.
We all know deterrence is the answer. Deter and save lives. Because fewer people attempting the Channel crossing will mean fewer bodies in the water. But French apathy has meant deterrence has been something which happens somewhere other than the Pas de Calais.
Since Paris won’t do something about boats pushing off from their beaches, we have looked further and further afield for solutions. From close to home - the Channel Island of Alderney or the floating hotel of the Bibby Stockholm. Too far from home - the sovereign military bases of Cyprus. Ascension or Rwanda.
There was a time, not so very long ago, when we did think hard about how to choke the flow of illegals from their French source. In 2020, the Financial Times disclosed details of a Home Office ‘blue-sky thinking’ project to stop the boats. Wave machines in the Channel, floating barriers, jet-skis to force back dinghies.
The ideas were junked as unworkable, and since then, and a change of government, we have fallen back on rhetoric. Starmer’s promises to ‘smash the gangs’ have proved utterly worthless. We need less talk, more discreet (if kinetic) action.
More importantly, we need to stop being quite so reasonable. Trump is routinely ridiculed by the ‘reasonable classes’. He speaks and acts in a way they find absurd and crass. But from the southern border of the US to the Gaza Strip, his madcap schemes routinely bear fruit.
Our own Foreign Office is stuffed with the sort of people who find Trumpism laughable. Behaving unreasonably towards the French would offend their innate Francophilia. These mandarins, with their second homes in Provence, are reflexive Remainers, who are still mortified that ‘Little Englanders’ cared enough for the integrity of Britain’s borders to withdraw from the EU.
So, let’s put the Ministry of Defence in charge of turning back the tide of small boats and let them know that President Trump has their back.
Because, as we’ve seen time and again, it’s pretty clear that the POTUS, with his Scottish mother and love of the royal family, cares deeply about the UK. Couple that with his administration’s willingness to put some lead in the pencils of Western allies, and its ability to behave unpredictably, and we might have a chance of stopping the boats before they even leave French beaches.
It wouldn’t be an easy call for Starmer to make. Asking Trump to tell the French to suck-up the presence of British military and intelligence assets on their soil. But it might be his best chance - heaven forfend - of staying in office.
Our Standards: The GB News Editorial Charter
More From GB News