Source · Select Committees · Defence Committee
Recommendation 3
3
Paragraph: 52
A successful military strategy requires clear ends, ways and means.
Conclusion
A successful military strategy requires clear ends, ways and means. The ends (or in this case the objectives) are anything but. The MOD appears to regard its objective as ensuring that no migrant lands on their own terms, but the Home Office sees the objective as deterrence. Whilst these are not mutually exclusive, nor do they necessarily reinforce each other. The MoD’s objective is in any case at best incoherent, since the migrants’ over-riding aim is to land in the UK, regardless of whether or not on their own terms.
Paragraph Reference:
52
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
The Government believes the Committee’s conclusion is premature in that it was made before the full policy was announced. The Nationalities and Borders Act and the policy of third country processing will change the dynamic in the Channel. Migrants will not want to be intercepted in the way that, as the Committee notes, they currently are. Thus, the risk of interception is a deterrent and that deterrence is all the greater the more successful the maritime effort to ensure that no migrants reach the UK on their own terms. Operation Isotrope: Government response 5