At least 25 inflatable boats and 25 outboard engines believed to be destined for people-smuggling networks have been seized at the Port of Felixstowe, the UK Defence Journal understands.
National Crime Agency officers carried out the operation on Saturday 18 July with support from Border Force search teams and the Port of Felixstowe. The equipment was discovered inside a shipping container that had arrived from China.
The consignment contained ten-metre inflatable boats and Parsun outboard engines. According to the National Crime Agency, investigators believe the equipment was intended for criminal groups involved in organising small-boat crossings of the English Channel.
The vessel carrying the container was due to continue to Hamburg, where the cargo was expected to be unloaded. Germany has been used as a staging point for boats, engines and related equipment later transported to northern France and Belgium for use by smuggling networks.
There is no suggestion that the ship’s crew or operators knew what the container held.
The NCA said the seizure was believed to be the first interception in the UK of a bulk consignment containing both boats and engines intended for Channel crossings. Since the agency began targeting equipment supply chains in early 2023, more than 1,500 boats and engines have been intercepted by the NCA and overseas law enforcement partners.
Each of the inflatable boats could have carried around 80 people, according to the agency. Had all 25 reached the French coast and been used at full capacity, they could have transported approximately 2,000 people across the Channel.
Small boats used for irregular Channel crossings are frequently overloaded and powered by engines that may be insufficient for the number of people aboard. The crossings take place through one of the world’s busiest shipping routes, often in vessels with limited safety equipment.
NCA Branch Commander Adam Berry said, as quoted in a news update: “This was a significant seizure of small boat equipment which will put a huge dent in the profits of the criminal network involved.”
He added: “It will also have stopped these dangerous boats and under-powered engines being used to put lives at risk in the Channel.”
Berry said investigators acted after learning that the shipment would transit through Felixstowe on its way to Germany.
“Once we identified that the shipment would pass through a UK port on its way to Germany, we were able to work quickly with our partners at Border Force to ensure it would go no further,” he said.
“Targeting the supply lines of people smuggling gangs is just one way we are trying to disrupt them. Our investigation continues.”
Border Security Commander Duncan Capps CBE said, as quoted in the same news update: “This seizure delivers yet another serious blow to the criminal gangs facilitating dangerous and illegal Channel crossings.”
He continued: “Thanks to the hard work of the NCA, Home Office intelligence teams and Border Force officers, disruptions like these to criminal networks and their supply lines are happening more than ever before.”
Capps added: “We will continue to investigate, pursue and detain all those smuggling flimsy small boat equipment, and ensure that they face the full force of the law.”
The operation forms part of a broader effort to disrupt the logistics used by organised immigration crime groups. Rather than concentrating solely on departures from the French coast, investigators have increasingly targeted the companies, intermediaries, transport routes and storage locations used to acquire and move boats and engines across Europe.
The NCA said it currently has more than 100 investigations under way into individuals and networks suspected of involvement in people smuggling. Its investigation into those responsible for arranging the Felixstowe shipment remains active and includes cooperation with international law enforcement agencies.
It’s actually being overlooked by the media right now just how successful the measures introduced over the past two years have been in cutting immigration both legal and illegal. Small boat crossings are down by 43% this year over last and non EU immigration is down by 47%.
Loads more needs to be done but that last thing we should be doing is pretending there is any role for the Royal navy in this or that you can enter French’s territorial waters and send people back.
300 people have been charged in the last year with people smuggling. We need to keep this up and focus on the issue from all ends and get returns agreements with every country we can. It’s criminal that none of this has been done in the past ten years and politicans have hidden behind excuses or claiming they will send in the navy to solve the problem.
Slightly disingenuous, given they’re only down so much relative to an enormous spike, completely unprecedented in all of this country’s thousands of years of history. Illegal immigration via dinghy (AFAIK, not including people overstaying visas or illegally working) is still a small city’s worth of people every single year, and legal immigration I believe is higher in one year than the entirety of the inbound immigration in the 90s. Ultimately I won’t be happy unless immigration is net negative, nothing else will touch the sides
Amusingly facetious as ever Mr Spock
You’ll get your George Cross in the mail any day now cobber
“Ultimately I won’t be happy unless immigration is net negative, nothing else will touch the sides”
You do realise that this would screw the UK over.
Us, like most of the developed western world, have low birth rates. Last year the UK’s birth rate was 1.39 children per woman. This makes us an ageing society and the only thing keeping that ever-more-delicate balance of working people paying for ever-increasing numbers of pensioners is immigration of working-age people. Without that we rapidly collapse into a country where within decades there’d be more retired people than those working, and then either the economy or the pension system falls apart. Probably both.
This is what Japan, with their extremely low immigration levels, is facing over the next few decades.
So what would be your answer to solve this problem without immigration?
Don’t see the need to get too into the weeds on this since it is way off topic and my own views change nothing. But since you ask, I’d prefer we turtle up and die on our own terms than continue down the path of total demographic replacement. Neither are good outcomes. At least there’s a chance, however small, that birth rates could pick back up again one day
The answer has got to be an increase in the birth rate.
One of the most sinister things i’ve seen for many decades is the entire apparatus of state and culture convince Western women to stop having children. Now thats been sorted the call goes out that we need infinate brown people from the third world to keep us afloat. As if infinate brown people from dreadfull countries could somehow save the West. Their own countries are awful, they aren’t improving ours one bit, all its doing is making the West third world.
“The answer has got to be an increase in the birth rate.”
The obvious question there, though, is how do we increase the birth rate?
Thats a really difficult question to answer, and people all over the West are now grappling with it. How do you overturn the last 50 years of Liberalism that has made women think having children is optional? Theres got to be lots of policy shaped around family, things like tax breaks etc. The answer isn’t importing low IQ 3rd worlders, its been tried and its a disaster. All its achieving is making the West look like Africa. Ultimately if we don’t get above replacement rate the West is finished. In anycase civil war will more than likely arrive before hand.
18 – 30 year olds need to start doing some serious bonking 😆
The government could fund unlimited IVF for women over 35 and under 40. This would only apply to women who have had at least 5 years on a payroll as evidence of working to qualify. A little thank you from the state to those who work (and as a consequence caused them to delay being a parent)
In addition to this (if I were in charge) I’d also have GPs prescribe progesterone for every pregnant women. It could prevent over 8,000 miscarriages every year in the UK.
Worked for my wife and me; she suffered two miscarriages in a row before getting pregnant last year with our daughter, who’s now 6 months old, and she was prescribed progesterone for it.
The problem with that is to increase the birth rate you take women out of the productive workforce and your not getting new productive workers for 20 or so years.. so it’s a short and medium term negative…
In reality we need to actually escape the growth loop.. accept we have finite resources and live within our means.
The issue is the principle that as a sovereign nation we are in control of our own affairs.
If we invite people in to our houses through the front door that is fine however if people burst in through the windows that gives us a problem. Besides birth rate tends to naturally drop when all is well and there is a danger of overcrowding and increase when the population needs replacing due to war or pestilence.
Part of the issue is that living in certain parts of the world is becoming tricky. It necessitates reclaiming those areas and re-instating populations in those countries and helping them take control of their environment.
A massive undertaking to add to all the existing massive undertakings the human race needs to deal with.
‘Global mean vegetation greenness reached a record high in the year 2025, extending the multi-decadal upward trend. A total of 68.2% of vegetated land surfaces experienced greening, particularly in grasslands and croplands in the Southern Hemisphere and in northern mid-latitudes.’
‘Vegetation greenness in 2025’, Nature, April 2026
You have to be a bit careful with Greening, it’s driven by C02 fertilisation and what you get is an overgrown of plants that are adapted to higher C02 usage at the expense of native species… What it’s not stopping is the drying and reduced rainfall..it’s just hiding it.. and we and our food animals need water and we don’t eat random green stuff. So increased greening does not = increased food production and water security.
‘The world’s several dozen global climate models offer little guidance on how much the climate responds to elevated CO2, with the average surface warming under a doubling of the CO2 concentration ranging from 1.8°C to 5.7°C …Data-driven methods yield a lower and narrower range…
Most extreme weather events in the U.S. do not show long-term trends. Claims of increased frequency
or intensity of hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and droughts are not supported by U.S. historical data…
Additionally, forest management practices are often overlooked in assessing changes in wildfire
activity… Global sea level has risen approximately 8 inches since 1900, but there are significant regional variations driven primarily by local land subsidence; U.S. tide gauge measurements in aggregate
show no obvious acceleration in sea level rise beyond the historical average rate…
Attribution of climate change or extreme weather events to human CO2 emissions is challenged by natural climate variability, data limitations, and inherent model deficiencies…Moreover, solar
activity’s contribution to the late 20th century warming might be underestimated…
Both models and experience suggest that CO2-induced warming might be less damaging economically
than commonly believed, and excessively aggressive mitigation policies could prove more detrimental than
beneficial…
Social Cost of Carbon estimates, which attempt to quantify the economic damage of CO2 emissions, are highly sensitive to their underlying assumptions and so provide limited independent information…’
The climate boondoggle is over in the U.S. What happens in America never stays in America.
Weather is what the atmosphere is doing right now or over a short time like a few days, while climate is the average pattern of weather in a place over 30 years or more.
‘Greenhouse gas emissions have had little-to-no effect on heatwaves against the background of urbanization and natural climate variability.’
‘Given the unusual heatwave definition and urban focus, these increasing values since 1960 presented
in USGCRP (2023) are not informative about long term trends or the influence of GHG emissions for at
least two reasons. First…the 1960s was the coldest decade and 1970s the second coldest decade since the 1910’s, so this starting date preconditions the time series to show increases. Second, post-1960 urbanization in these cities is a major factor…’
Karl et al. 1988, Runnals and Oke 2006, Christy et al. 2009, McNider et al.2012
‘…widespread acknowledgement that RCP8.5 is an implausible emissions scenario. As a result, many news agencies have dropped or substantially reduced their climate desk, we don’t hear about climate change so much in the media (particularly as related to extreme weather events). Also, we can’t underestimate the impact of substantially reduced funding for climate-related NGOs, with USAID and other funds drying up.
The leaders of the climate alarmism movement have not conceded defeat but have done much whining, notably over President Trump and the RCP8.5 scenario…the whole issue has lost its political relevance. During the past several months we have watched the entire world panic over loss of access to Middle Eastern oil, and major concerns raised about the need for massively more electricity to support data centers. Putting a tourniquet around our energy supply in the name of eliminating CO2 emissions is a much worse idea now than it was even a few years ago, and that seems to be widely recognized (even in Europe). Most tellingly, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has dropped climate change as an issue, now focusing on AI (and health).’
Let me think…what vaccinations have I had?..Diptheria, Smallpox, Tuberculosis (BCG), Anthrax, Botulinum toxoid, Yellow fever, Hepatitis B, Typhoid, Tetanus and Diphtheria, Cholera, Polio, Meningococcal meningitis…and so on and so forth…
As previously stated, Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition (completed by Juan Sebastián Elcano in 1522) successfully circumnavigated the globe, providing practical demonstration of a continuous continuous-surface ocean route…
You don’t know who they were funded by because you haven’t read them.
Most types of extreme weather exhibit no statistically significant long-term trends over the available historical record. While there has been an increase in hot days in the U.S. since the 1950s, a point emphasized by AR6, numbers are still low relative to the 1920s and 1930s. Extreme convective storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and droughts exhibit considerable natural variability, but long-term increases are not detected. Some increases in extreme precipitation events can be detected in some regions over short intervals but the trends do not persist over long periods and at the regional scale. Wildfires are not more common in the U.S. than they were in the 1980s. Burned area increased from the 1960s to the early 2000’s, however it is low compared to the estimated natural baseline level. U.S. wildfire activity is strongly affected by forest management practices.’
Gershunov, A., and K. Guirguis (2012). California heat waves in the present and future. Geophysical Research Letters, 39(18).
Apple, C. (2020, January 21). 1910 fire – The big burn across Montana and Idaho. The Spokesman ReviewChristy, J. R., Norris, W. B., and McNider, R. T. (2009). Surface temperature variations in East Africa
and possible causes. Journal of Climate, 22(12), 3342–3356Gershunov, A., T. Shulgina, F.M. Ralph, D.A. Lavers J.J. and Rutz (2017). Assessing the climate-scale
variability of atmospheric rivers affecting western North America. Geophysical Research Letters, 44(15), 7900–7908.
Lizundia-Loiola, J., et al. (2020) A spatio-temporal active-fire clustering approach for global burned area mapping at 250 m from MODIS data. Remote Sensing of the Environment 236, 111493Markonis, Y., and D. Koutsoyiannis (2016). Scale dependence of persistence in precipitation records. Nature Climate Change, 6, 399–401NCA4. (2017). Climate science special report: Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume I (D. J. Wuebbles, D. W. Fahey, and K. A. Hibbard, Eds.). Runnalls, K.E. and T.R. Oke, 2006: Technique to detect microclimate inhomogeneities in historical records of screen-level air temperature. Journal of Climate, 19, 959-978.
Seneviratne, S. et al. (2021) “Chapter 11: Weather and Climate Extreme Events in a Changing Climate.”
Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by V. MassonDelmotte, P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S.L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, N. Caud, et al., 1513–1766.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021
And so on and so forth.
Let me know when you have read that lot and I will send you some more…
Oh!
“I asked around a bit more and another issue came up that you need to be aware of,” wrote Fauci in a Jan. 25, 2021, text exchange with then-Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.
“Since many people have significant cytokines storm and fever after the 2nd dose, this theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the 1st trimester,”
You haven’t read any of the references, have you?
If we do nothing you mean? Will we (UK) actually do nothing do you think?
We know certain countries will do nothing because they do not care and will not survive unless they start caring.
Where do you sit on this Mr Spock. Is it logical.
‘…the UK Met Office’s temperature measuring sites were so poorly located that potential ‘uncertainties’ could corrupt the readings by a numbers of degrees of centigrade. World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) Classes 4 and 5 in its CIMO scale come with ‘uncertainties’ up to 2°C and 5°C respectively, and a Freedom of Information (FOI) request found that 77.9% of the UK Met Office’s sites were in these two ‘junk’ categories.’
‘…widespread acknowledgement that RCP8.5 is an implausible emissions scenario. As a result, many news agencies have dropped or substantially reduced their climate desk, we don’t hear about climate change so much in the media (particularly as related to extreme weather events). Also, we can’t underestimate the impact of substantially reduced funding for climate-related NGOs, with USAID and other funds drying up.’
More information that you haven’t even bothered to read…
‘The Siting Classification for Surface Observing Stations on Land is the first common ISO/WMO standard. It was published by ISO as ISO standard 19289:2014 (EN).
This International Standard indicates exposure rules for various sensors, but what should be done when these conditions are not fulfilled? There are sites that do not respect the recommended exposure rules….A class 5 site is a site where nearby obstacles create an inappropriate environment for a meteorological measurement that is intended to be representative of a wide area (at least tens of km2).’
‘A team of researchers under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organization has published a review paper in Nature Geoscience’
‘There is no conclusive evidence that any observed changes in tropical cyclone genesis, tracks, duration and surge flooding exceed the variability expected from natural causes…we cannot at this time conclusively identify anthropogenic signals in past tropical cyclone data…’
‘Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels…If it is consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus.’— Michael Crichton
Why would the uk collapse? Maybe the billions wasted by government would be a good Start? You know robots will be more prolific soon after AI gets better? We don’t need more and more people.
Because our retired population is growing larger and living longer, and relatively fewer working age people to sustain them with tax.
Let’s not forget Steve, low birth rate or not, there’s still a million 18 to 25 year olds on benefits doing sweet fu#k all, but draining the treasury.
A good start would be to get these lazy oxygen thieves working…..
😑😴😴😴😴
Thats a really difficult question to answer, and people all over the West are now grappling with it. How do you overturn the last 50 years of Liberalism that has made women think having children is optional? Theres got to be lots of policy shaped around family, things like tax breaks etc. The answer isn’t importing low IQ 3rd worlders, its been tried and its a disaster. All its achieving is making the West look like Africa. Ultimately if we don’t get above replacement rate the West is finished. In anycase civil war will more than likely arrive before hand.
I agree with you completely Luke, with the exception of the ‘low IQ 3rd worlders ‘ bit. I would not be suprized if these young men coming in have a higher IQ than me, but what causes the problems is their education and upbringing in a different society to ours.
Look, where would you rather live? Switzerland or Sudan? Switzerland is Switzerland because of the Swiss and nothing else. You can dress it up however you like to make it more palatable, i just don’t care. Africa is a dump because of Africans, always has been, always will be. The West is the West because of essentially European culture going back over a 1000 years. Admitting people from the worst countries on earth is no benefit to anyone, its been a disaster for society. Again, i just don’t care what anyone says. Access to white people is not a human right.
Keep your hair on Luke – I was actually supporting you!
It is poisonous Liberals (like you) embedded in the Establishment who are the real problem. Having a strong disincentive to childbearing in the personal tax system is hugely counterproductive, for example. Most of what Luke has said is common sense and you have zero grounds for concluding anyone is thinking that womens’ rights are up for grabs.
You really need to grow up a bit, Spock.
Don’t bother, Spock lives for trolling folks on here, look back at his posts, he seldom actually contributes to any discussion.
He’s probably one of the ‘anxious’ 18/25 PIP Army, so he has to spend his days doing something I guess.
Don’t engage…
Thanks John; good advice, and appreciated.
👍
Everything i dont like is Hitler. How cute
You sound like you’re 12
Don’t engage with Spock/ David Lloyd, (I suspect the same troll), getting a rise out of people is probably the only way the sad sack can achieve an erection.
I can’t understand why admin hasn’t just banned PiP boy yet?
Child bearing not optional.. on behalf of my daughters, wobble your head man.child bearing is utterly up to the woman..her body her choice.. or do we get to choose if you can take a piss or not…
Child bearing is definately optional, and nobody has suggested otherwise. I have a daughter too. Fact is though if the birthate doesn’t increase the world is finished. In 40 years time we won’t have the workers to look after the elderly and pay for our systems of government. We can ignore the fact but we can’t ignore the consequences of the fact.
Cost of living needs to come down to enable people to have more children.
My wife is happy to have as many children as possible, I’d like 3, but doubtful we can afford 3. A lot of people are struggling to get by even without kids.
I’ve stuck on two. We paid 100k on childcare in the early years, thankfully all over now.
Yes, there needs to be serious thought given to making it easier and cheaper to have children.
‘The Handmaids take’ Spock, sounds like a cheap rip off too me….
“Most of what Luke has said is common sense and you have zero grounds for concluding anyone is thinking that womens’ rights are up for grabs.”
Luke literally said childbearing shouldn’t be optional for women. That sounds like women’s rights right there.
No childbearing, no future for the world. Look at the TFR all over the world right now. The only area on earth thats above replacement rate is Sub Saharan Africa. Even most provinces in India are below replacement. In 40 years we are looking at population collapse. Here in the UK in the coming decades all our systems of government wont be affordable anymore. Its literally the number one issue for the planet and everyone wants to ignore it. We can ignore it but not the consequences of it.
So your solution is what, to force them to get pregnant and give birth? Teach young girls that their primary if not only role in life is to be broodmares?
Most women do actually want children. They also want some independence and careers, rather than simply marrying the first man they date and popping out kids like a pez dispenser like their parents’ and grandparents’ generations did.
However, the biggest barrier, I think, is the cost.
Families decades ago were larger. My dad was one of 4, my mum one of 5. Hardly anyone can afford that, though. Cost of living is so high that many couples in their 20s and 30s, whom decades past would be settled, married and with multiple children, are struggling to afford to live as a childless couple, let alone then bringing up multiple kids.
Cost of living has to be tackled as part of this.
From a medical standpoint I also think all pregnant women should be prescribed progesterone. It could prevent 8,000+ miscarriages every year.
My wife had 2 miscarriages before our daughter was born, I read into it and progesterone would be an easy way of increasing the birth rate for basically almost-zero effort and little cost.
I agree with most of what you write. Simple fact is though if we dont get above replacement rate society is done. Everything else pales into insignificance.
This an accidental repost of the 28th July article?
Given global warming etc. Populations will have to shrink anyway. And if we csn survive that the AI revolution and robotics are likely ti decrease need for wofkers. Ok simplifulication but you get the drift. Either way society will be chsnging and population growth is unlikely to be part of it.
Smash the gangs was the most childish idiotic political expression for a so called ex prosecutor PM to make. We have being “smashing the gangs” in the narco-wars for 40 years, all the same stuff, up stream intelligence, upstream disruption, follow the money blah blah blah and because the demand was always there and rising nothing has changed its just got worse and the same is bound to apply in people trafficking.