QT audience member suggests pushing small boats back to France

A BBC Question Time audience member suggested pushing boats back to France in a bid to end the Channel crisis.

The audience member’s contribution came as this week’s show, filmed in Somerset, debated whether it was time to abandon the Rwanda policy.

The audience member said: “Would you advocate pushing back the boats to France in the short term to be able to stop the traffickers pushing people in?”

Host Fiona Bruce asked: “Pushing people into the water?”

The woman replied: “Pushing people into the country. So if you push the boats back to France, let France do whatever legally necessary to just stop the traffickers sending people over in boats to the UK.”

Bruce pressed her on if it was “something you’d like to see”.

The audience member insisted it was “something that should be considered”.

Bruce asked: “So people coming across on the dinghies you’d like to see them pushed back?”

The woman said: “Pushed back to France so that the traffickers can be stopped there and then before they even start getting on the boats.”

The BBC presenter said: “Would you worry about people drowning in those circumstances?”

The audience member replied: “Well obviously, a lot of people are drowning in dreadful circumstances and that’s really not on.

“But on the other hand are the French rescuing as many people and taking them back to France as we’re rescuing and bringing to the UK?”

Priti Patel looked at deploying a pushback policy when she was Home Secretary but the controversial tactic was ditched shortly before a judicial review in the High Court in 2022.

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