Minister brands Robert Jenrick's 'lethal force' on migrants comment 'disgusting and illegal'

Robert Jenrick has been accused of pushing “illegal and disgusting policies” after claiming Royal Marines will use "lethal force" on migrants in the Channel if Nigel Farage becomes Prime Minister. Defence Readiness Minister Luke Pollard said Reform UK were trying to distract from the “sleaze and scandal” engulfing the party, and claimed the policy went against British values. The former Tory minister Mr Jenrick was already facing a furious backlash over the comments, including from Lord Alf Dubs, a Labour peer who fled the Nazis as a child. Speaking on Times Radio on Tuesday morning, Mr Pollard said: “That's disgusting and illegal. Our Royal Navy are not allowed, as all armed forces are, to accept an illegal order. We do not shoot unarmed civilians. We do not take military action against civilians. To see more of the stories you love from The Mirror and to find them easily in Google then make us your preferred source. Free and easy-to-do, just click on the link here to find more from The Mirror at the top of your feed. “The idea of this, when you extend from the soundbite designed by Reform to distract from their sleaze and the scandal, designed to take away attention on where the £5 million came from for Nigel Farage, when you go into the detail of this, it is abhorrent to British military values. “It's abhorrent to British values, and frankly, it's illegal and disgusting. And I don't think that anyone should give this any truck, because we can all see what this is. It's a simple attempt to distract from Reform's internal woes by seeking to put a dead cat on the table. "Here's something to distract you. Talk about our latest extreme soundbite that we're deliberately designing to take attention away from what actually the news is, which is the sleaze and scandal engulfing Reform, the Reform councillors leaving in droves because their party's falling apart. And I'll have no part to play in promoting their disgusting ideas.” Former Tory immigration minister Mr Jenrick, Reform's pick to be Chancellor if Mr Farage gets into No10, had told Talk TV: "What we are going to do, and we're the only political party that has the courage to say this, is deploy the Royal Marines into the Channel. If they need to use lethal force, then they'll be able to do so. " That's obviously not what we want to see happen. We want to see these individuals picked up off the boats in a sensible and reasonable way, and taken straight back to France. But I think the problem would come to an end very, very quickly, within a matter of days." Hardliner Mr Jenrick - who was a Home Office minister under Rishi Sunak - previously provoked outrage after it emerged he ordered murals of Mickey Mouse and Tom and Jerry were removed at a Dover asylum centre to make it less welcoming to children. It comes as Nigel Farage unveiled his plans to close the UK to asylum seekers - leading to criticism from religious leaders and human rights campaigners.