“Dinghies coming into Great Yarmouth, RIGHT NOW. Authorities alerted, and I am urgently chasing,” posted ex-Reform, now independent, MP Rupert Lowe on Facebook last night, along with a picture of what looked rather more like a rowing boat off the coast of his constituency.
“If these are illegal migrants, I will be using every tool at my disposal to ensure these individuals are deported,” he wrote, adding: “Enough is enough. Britain needs mass deportations. NOW.”
Alas for the hapless Lowe and his binoculars, deporting these particular seadogs would be rather difficult – what with them being a British charity crew attempting to row from Land’s End to John o’Groats to raise funding and awareness for motor neurone disease.
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The crew have said they were contacted by the coastguard and asked if they could see a dinghy nearby – only to realise they were the ‘dinghy’ which had been spotted by the less-than eagle-eyed MP. The four – Matthew Parker, Mike Bates, Aaron Kneebone and Liz Wardley, known collectively as Row4MND – said that after satisfying the coastguard that they were who they said they were, they were allowed to continue. But several hours later, the coastguard contacted them again because the police had “asked if they could send a lifeboat out to check who we were”.
Eventually, they were forwarded Lowe’s post, along with the comments under it, including one demanding to know where the Royal Navy were when they were needed. “I’m a former Royal Marine, so the Royal Navy were on the boat,” said Bates.
Lowe has since donated £1,000 to the RowMND charity over his boo-boo, though nothing, it appears, to the coastguard for wasting their time. “I make no apologies over being vigilant for my constituents,” he says. Maybe time to give those binoculars a polish, Rupert!
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