16 2GM Wednesday January 19 2022 | the times
News
Conservative MPs have warned that
the Royal Navy will become a “taxi
service” for Channel migrants and have
criticised the government’s handling of
the crisis as “Operation Dog’s Dinner”.
Backbench MPs denounced the plan
as an “embarassment” and criticised
ministers for not seeking to push back
small boats trying to reach England.
It came as Ghana denied being in
talks with Britain about hosting a
migrant-processing facility — one of
several populist policies announced by
the prime minister this week.
Ministers had said they were drawing
up plans to send migrants to countries
such as Ghana and Rwanda for process-
ing and resettlement to stem the flow of
small boats across the Channel.
The announcement formed part of
the government’s attempt to offer “red
meat” to Tory MPs to divert attention
from allegations of Downing Street
parties. However, the Ghanaian gov-
ernment referred to it as “Operation
Dead Meat” and said: “The Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and Regional Integra-
tion wishes to state categorically that
Ghana has not engaged with the UK on
any such plan and does not intend to
consider any such operation.”
More than 770 people have made the
the mission statement as far as I under-
stand it is to lower the number of people
landing on their own terms on UK
beaches.
“So what the minister has effectively
announced... is asylum seekers only
need to get halfway across the Channel
before being intercepted by the Royal
Navy. This is going to incentivise
people traffickers.”
Heappey said: “I don’t accept his
characterisation of what is being
spoken about. The Ministry of De-Navy ‘will become
taxi service for
Channel migrants’
dangerous journey across the Channel
in small boats this year. This follows a
record-breaking year in 2021, when at
least 28,000 migrants arrived in the
UK.
Yesterday morning a group including
a child aboard a small boat were met by
Border Force agents a few hundred
metres from the port of Dover.
James Heappey, a defence minister,
said military involvement was part of a
government plan that will be an-
nounced within weeks.
But the former Conservative minis-
ter Sir Edward Leigh demanded: “In the
absence of ministers having the polit-
ical will to use pushback, what is the
point in appointing a Royal Naval
admiral to help Border Force to be a
more efficient taxi service so that the
migrants will know that now ‘we have
got the Royal Navy going to pick us up
and we will be taken safely to the UK’?
This is just an embarrassment.
“Will the minister now co-ordinate
with his colleagues to do what we have
been suggesting for months now and
that we get rid of the pull factors?”
The Conservative MP Philip Hollo-
bone said: “This isn’t Operation Red
Meat; it’s Operation Dog’s Dinner. If
the mission statement was to reduce
the level of illegal people trafficking
across the Channel, I’d support it. ButLarisa Brown Defence Editor
fence’s mission is to make sure nobody
arrives in the UK on their own terms.”
Mark Francois, a former Tory minis-
ter, welcomed military involvement but
asked: “If they are not going to be
involved in pushback and not going to
deploy sonic weapons, what are they
actually going to do?”
John Healey, the shadow defence
secretary, said the military “are there to
protect the nation, not to protect Tory
ministers”, and the plan “is official con-
firmation the home secretary is failing”.Anglican leaders from churches
around the world are to be given a much
greater say in choosing the Archbishop
of Canterbury under controversial
proposals.
Concerns have been raised about
whether the proposals could set back
hopes of a woman or a backer of same-
sex marriage being appointed, because
many Anglican churches globally still
do not allow women to become bishops
and most oppose the idea of conducting
gay marriages in church.
A church consultation document
notes that the plans have been drawn
up with “encouragement” from Justin
Welby.
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the
spiritual leader of 80 million worship-
pers worldwide but has no power over
any overseas Anglican churches.
Candidates for the role are nomin-
ated by 16 members of the “crown nom-
inations commission”. They pass their
preferred name to the prime minister
for final approval by the Queen.
Under the plans the places for over-
seas Anglican Communion representa-
tives would be boosted from one to five.
The Rev Andrew Foreshew-Cain,
chaplain of Lady Margaret Hall,
Oxford, who married his husband in
2014, said the plan would “make pro-
gress towards change more tortuous”.Anglican plan
may boost
traditionalists
Kaya Burgess
Religious Affairs CorrespondentJON SANTA CRUZMore than 770 people have made the journey across the Channel in small boats
this year. Tory MPs fear involving the navy will incentivise people traffickers