Lee Anderson spent a good chunk of Wednesday’s Good Morning Britain insisting France hadn’t really rejected Reform’s Operation Fortress. France had rejected it. Richard Madeley and Charlotte Hawkins just couldn’t get him to say so.

Anderson appeared from Calais, where he’d gone to look at the migrant camps and talk about the small boats plan Reform announced days earlier: a joint Royal Navy, Royal Marines, RAF and Army command intercepting boats in the Channel and returning people to France or Belgium. Farage has called it the largest military operation in the Channel since the Second World War and claims it would stop crossings within two weeks of a Reform government.

The problem Madeley kept raising

Madeley put it to him directly: British naval vessels can’t just enter French waters and drop people on French soil without permission, and France had already said no. Hawkins reduced it further: “There’s still the sticking point of the French not letting you do this.”

“How do you know?” Anderson asked.

“Because they’ve said it’s a violation of their sovereignty and it wouldn’t be legal,” Hawkins replied.

“Absolute nonsense.”

“But that is what they’ve said,” Hawkins reminded him.

Anderson kept insisting they were “missing the point,” arguing that once migrants and smugglers realised the crossing wasn’t working, they’d simply stop coming, “and that will save lives.” He cited the previous day’s rescue of around 150 migrants, brought back to France by British and French authorities together, as proof the plan could work. Madeley pushed back immediately: that was a genuine emergency rescue after a fire on board, agreed to jointly, not the unilateral turnaround Reform is proposing. “You didn’t have British naval vessels going into French waters. And what the French are saying is they won’t allow you to do that.”

Anderson never actually answers whether Reform has spoken to France

Madeley asked directly: had Reform discussed this with French authorities at all?

“I’ve not personally spoken to, no,” Anderson said. Asked whether Reform as a party had, he didn’t answer that either: “Listen, it doesn’t matter, Richard. We want to save lives in the English Channel.”

Madeley pointed out that it does matter, if the French won’t allow it, the policy simply isn’t workable. Anderson’s response was to keep repeating the question back: “Why wouldn’t the French want to save lives?” Madeley answered plainly: “You’ve asked it quite a few times. You’ve said which country would possibly stop us doing this? The answer, sir, is France. That’s the country that will stop you doing it. They’ve been explicit… They will not accept British naval vessels coming into our territorial waters because it is illegal.”

Anderson’s reply: “So it’s illegal to save lives in the English Channel. I think we’re not going to agree on this, guys.” Then: “It’s not been tested yet. It’s not been tried. So how do you know it won’t work?”

Hawkins tried to draw the line clearly: “It’s not a fight, Charlotte. It’s not been charged yet. This is a fact that the French government are telling you. It would be a violation of their sovereignty and it wouldn’t be legal. That’s a fact.” Anderson accused them of criticising Reform. Hawkins corrected him: “It’s not criticism. It’s just a fact. I’m telling you what the French government is saying.”

Pushed on whether he’d follow up with French authorities directly, Anderson pivoted to a complaint about being moved off the beach by armed police that morning: “If they showed as much effort into stopping the migrants crossing the channel as they have stopping us to get on the beaches this morning and yesterday morning, then maybe they could reduce the numbers as well.” The interview ended there, with Madeley thanking him for “the airtime we’ve shared with you” and wishing him a good day “on the French beaches.”

What France has actually said, in its own words

A French interior ministry spokesperson said the proposal “would be a violation of French sovereignty as well as a violation of maritime law and international law,” a statement made directly in response to Farage unveiling the policy. Reform hasn’t produced any agreement under which France or Belgium would accept people returned by British forces. This isn’t a hostile interpretation from a TV sofa. It’s the French government’s own stated position, repeated back to Anderson four separate times in slightly different words, and rejected by him each time.

The plan has problems closer to home too

French cooperation isn’t the only unresolved piece. Former Royal Navy commander Tom Sharpe has separately questioned whether the Navy even has the ships, telling BBC Radio 4 the plan “begins to unravel quite quickly” once you look at the actual fleet available. “The reality, when you start looking at what ships we have, is basically none.” He argued billion-pound warships built for anti-air or anti-submarine warfare are badly suited to intercepting overcrowded dinghies: “You’re better off using an actual ferry.” Reform’s Zia Yusuf criticised the BBC for interviewing Sharpe before the full policy document was published, which doesn’t actually address the number of ships available.

Reform also hasn’t explained what happens if a boat becomes unsafe mid-interception, if passengers refuse to cooperate, or if French authorities simply deny British vessels entry to their waters. These aren’t minor details. A dinghy carrying 173 people capsized in the Channel this week after its engine caught fire. Everyone was rescued, 11 suffered minor injuries, three went to hospital. French authorities said they initially avoided forcing passengers onto rescue vessels precisely because that risked capsizing an already overcrowded boat. That’s the environment Reform wants to deploy the armed forces into.

A pattern that keeps repeating

Anderson’s response, insisting an inconvenient fact is simply wrong rather than engaging with it, matches how Robert Jenrick handled repeated questions about George Cottrell’s finances days earlier, and how Sarah Pochin responded to France’s objection by mocking its wartime defeat instead of addressing the legal problem. Three different Reform figures, three different topics, the same underlying move: when the answer is uncomfortable, attack whoever’s asking the question rather than answer it.

By the end of the GMB interview, Madeley and Hawkins had put the same basic question to Anderson in half a dozen different ways and gotten nothing back but “absolute nonsense.” Operation Fortress has now been rejected by the French government directly, questioned on ship numbers by a former Navy commander, and left unable to answer a basic question about whether anyone from Reform has actually spoken to France about any of it. Anderson’s interview didn’t resolve any of that.

You can watch it below: