The number of people crossing the Channel to enter the UK illegally now constitutes a threat to national security, according to the former head of the Army Lord Richard Dannatt.
Asked if the situation was a threat to national security, he told The Camilla Tominey Show on GB News: “If you look at it most broadly, yes, it is.
“Various political parties have talked about taking control of our borders, and clearly we are not able to control our borders. It’s been a problem that successive governments have wrestled with, and they failed really to come up with a solution.
“Conversations need to continue with the French. I have an awful feeling that the French are quietly enjoying the discomfort that all these people coming across the Channel is providing us, but no, I think if Andy Burnham really wants to make an impression as the new prime minister, he’s got to really get a grip of this one.”
Asked if Reform UK’s policy on small boats would work, he said: “Sailors will do whatever their ship’s captain and the Admiralty actually want them to do, of course. But I think the issue really is, and I think this is the weakness in what I understand is the Reform’s plan, is the degree to which the French are willing to co-operate and play their part in that.
“It’s one thing to turn boats round in the Channel to pick people up and take them to the beaches, but frankly, if the French are not prepared to play their part and send the people back to where they come from, then frankly, we’re going to go round and round in circles.
“What seems to be having the greatest effect is, right across Europe, action being taken to bear down on the criminal gangs, to bear down on the supply of boats, bear down on the supply of engines that can bring these people across. I think that is probably having some form of effect.”
On the threat from Russia, he said: “These kinds of threats are what we’ve been talking about for quite some time now. Until this US intelligence report came out a couple of days ago, the conversation was about Russia doing this about as early as 2029. It doesn’t surprise me at all that they might be minded to do something sooner than that.
“Of course, what that something is hard to identify. But what his purpose will be will be to test the solidarity of NATO, to test article five of the North Atlantic Treaty. If there was to be a limited land incursion, let’s say into Estonia, that attack on a NATO member would that be considered to be an attack on the whole alliance, and would the whole alliance react in support of Estonia? That’s the sort of thing that Putin would like to challenge.”
Asked if we are prepared for a war, he said: “No, we’re not ready for war as such. That’s why the Strategic Defence Review last year was a good review. It had 62 recommendations. It was supposed to be funded by the Defence Investment Plan, which didn’t come out until just a month or two ago and was woefully underfunded. And that’s a big issue that Andy Burnham has got to deal with.
“It’s fine to promise the best social care system in the world, but frankly, if it’s a social care system that’s being dominated by a threat from a hostile country like Russia, it’s not worth the money that’s going to be spent on it.”