'I'm fundraising for a RNLI boat called The Flying Farage - it's almost hit target'
A man has launched a fundraiser to buy a rescue boat called 'the Flying Farage' for the RLNI - and it's almost hit its target.
Comedian Simon Harris is trying to raise enough money to fund a new life-saving hovercraft for the charity, who have been criticised by some right-wing figures including Nigel Farage for rescuing migrants on small boats crossing the channel.
He says he wants to name it after the Reform UK leader to thank him for his "active interest in the RNLI 's activities right now" - and jokes that he will buy a "pint of real English ale" to smash against the front of the vessel for the naming ceremony.
So far, his GoFundMe page has raised a remarkable £260,000 - meaning it is just £40,000 off its £300k target.
In an update on the campaign this week, Simon Harris wrote on Facebook: "I've noticed that there has recently been an increase in angry comments about the RNLI rescuing people in small boats in The Channel, and I've decided that I don't want to make people even angrier by pointing out that my appeal to buy the RNLI a rescue hovercraft called 'The Flying Farage' is only a few hundred away from a quarter of a million quids."
He added that the charity had told him the money is "being ringfenced for the lifeboat stations in the South East of England that are regularly called out to assist with small boats". The Mirror has approached the RNLI for comment.
Earlier this week, RNLI volunteer Paula Lain told the BBC that the charity is "actively compassionate" when dealing with all incidents at sea, and said: "When our pager goes, we're not thinking anything political. We're all thinking about people."
The RNLI says less than 1% of its funding comes from the government, and is primarily funded by gifts in wills, making up 65% of its revenue, and donations, which come to around 30%.
It comes amid what has so far been a record year for small boat arrivals to the UK.
As of last week, over 25,000 people have crossed the English Channel in small boats since the beginning of the year.
This number has been reached earlier in 2025 than in previous years. In 2022, the previous record year for small boat arrivals, the 25,000 mark was not passed until August 27.
A total of 898 people in 13 vessels made it to the UK on Wednesday, the highest number recorded since the heatwave in early July. The Home Office has said it will "end dangerous small boat crossings" through its plan to target the operations of people smuggling gangs, who they say "do not care if the vulnerable people they exploit live or die, as long as they pay".
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
2 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Snowflake solicitors are destroying a once proud profession
Britain's legal profession – once a byword for rigour, intellect and integrity – now finds itself the latest battleground in the war against excellence. A cohort of aspiring solicitors has taken to petitioning for the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE) to be made easier. Their complaint? The exams are 'too hard, disproportionately challenging ', and, of course, 'biased towards certain backgrounds and learning styles '. In other words: 'We didn't do well, and it must be someone else's fault.' There could hardly be a more telling parable of our times. The snowflake sensibility – once confined to undergraduate common rooms and the wilder fringes of social media – has now infected even the corridors of legal ambition. The future custodians of our justice system are not asking for a level playing field; they are asking for the pitch to be tilted until everyone scores. The argument, if we can call it that, is that maintaining high standards will inevitably restrict 'diversity' in the profession. And here we are again, at the familiar intersection where merit collides with identity politics – and where the latter is expected to triumph, no matter the cost. This isn't about widening opportunity. It is about lowering the bar. Having sat more than a dozen legal exams across three jurisdictions – from the halls of Cambridge to the benches of the Sorbonne, and ultimately the famously exacting New York bar – I speak from a place of experience. These were not fun. I lost a stone in weight during one set of particularly punishing exams. They were not 'inclusive'. They were not designed to reflect my personal learning style. They were difficult. That was the point. And when I passed them, I felt a precious sense of achievement and readiness for the real world of legal practice. And therein lies a truth we are fast forgetting: standards are not meant to flatter us, they are meant to test us. The whole premise of a professional exam is that it provides an independent measure of competence. It is meant to be hard. It is meant to discriminate: not on the basis of race or class, but on the basis of skill, preparation and effort. That is not injustice. That is fairness. If I'm paying a lawyer, a doctor, or a pilot for their services, I do not want someone who merely feels entitled to the role. I want someone who has earned their place. Their colour, class or creed do not matter to me. What matters, and should matters, is their calibre. And if that view now makes me unfashionable, then so be it. But the consequences of this race to the bottom go far beyond a few disgruntled exam-takers. Undermining legal standards risks hollowing out one of the UK's most formidable exports: our legal profession itself. English law is the governing framework of choice for international commerce precisely because it has been shaped by a world-class profession. A profession forged through rigour, not rhetoric. Flooding it with underprepared entrants – however well-meaning or well-intentioned – will not promote equity. It will diminish excellence. And it is the very people supposedly being helped who will suffer most, entering a crowded profession where oversupply drives down wages and erodes prestige. Here, then, is the central paradox: in the name of inclusion, we exclude the very mechanisms that uplift. Hard work. Discipline. Ambition. Standards. The old virtues are being recast as vices: elitism, snobbery, oppression. And all to appease a cultural mood that seems to confuse equal opportunity with equal outcomes. But Britain cannot afford this decline. Not in a century where the likes of China, India, and the United States are training their brightest and best to surpass us. While they chase excellence, we chase excuses. This is not compassion. It is cowardice, disguised in the language of empathy. It is not progress, it is entropy. And unless we reclaim the idea that standards matter – that excellence should be earned, and that challenge is a feature, not a flaw, of a functioning society – then we will become a country incapable of producing not just good lawyers, but good professionals of any kind.
Reuters
38 minutes ago
- Reuters
UK to start implementing migrant returns deal with France within days
LONDON, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Britain said it will start work within days to implement a deal to return some migrants who arrive on small boats to France, a key part of its plans to cut illegal migration, after a treaty on the arrangement was ratified on Tuesday. Under the new "one in, one out" pilot scheme agreed in principle last month, France will accept the return of undocumented people arriving in Britain by small boats, in exchange for Britain agreeing to accept an equal number of legitimate asylum seekers with British family connections. More than 25,000 people have come to Britain on small boats so far in 2025, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer has pledged to "smash the gangs" of people smugglers to try to reduce the number of arrivals. Starmer, whose popularity has fallen since winning an election landslide last year, is facing pressure to stop small boats from Nigel Farage's Reform UK party, which leads national opinion polls. In recent weeks in England, there have been protests near hotels housing asylum seekers who have arrived on small boats, attended by both anti-immigration groups and supporters of immigration. French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said on X that the deal has a "clear objective" to break up the people-smuggling networks. His British counterpart, Yvette Cooper, would not say how many people would be returned under the scheme. "The numbers will start lower and then build up," she told Sky News on Tuesday, adding that the scheme would return new arrivals, rather than people already in Britain. The treaty text said there would be a target timeframe of no more than three months from someone's arrival in Britain to transfer to France, and Britain's interior ministry said it expected detentions to begin within days. Britain must make the request to return an individual within 14 days of their arrival, and France does not have to accept unaccompanied minors or people who pose a pre-existing security threat, the treaty said. Government sources previously said the agreement would involve about 50 returns a week, or 2,600 a year, a fraction of the more than 35,000 arrivals reported last year. Critics of the scheme have said its small scale will not act as a deterrent, but Cooper said the agreement was just one part of a wider plan. The government has also used sanctions, measures against social media adverts and coordination with delivery firms to tackle people smuggling.
Telegraph
2 hours ago
- Telegraph
Farage splits with new prison tsar over trans women in female prisons
Nigel Farage has split with his new justice adviser over the issue of transgender women in female prisons. Vanessa Frake, a former prison governor, said on Monday that some transgender criminals should be imprisoned in women's jails. She called for cases to be assessed 'on an individual basis', and said people who call for a blanket ban had 'clearly have never stepped foot in a prison'. The comment was ridiculed by women's rights campaigners, including JK Rowling, who say trans women – biological men who identify as female – pose a threat to women in jail. Mr Farage responded to the row on X: 'I have never supported men in women's prisons.' Rupert Lowe, the former Reform MP, replied: 'You did yesterday.' He added: 'If you were born with a penis, you don't go in with the women prisoners. It's really not that complicated.' The Supreme Court ruled in April that trans women were not legally women under the Equality Act. This judgment means that trans women can legally be excluded from women's prisons. Two years ago there was a row when it emerged that Isla Bryson, a trans woman, had been put in a women's prison in Scotland despite having raped two women prior to transitioning. In his response on Tuesday morning, Mr Farage linked to a video he uploaded on the day of the Supreme Court ruling in which he stated: 'At last the lunacy is over. The Supreme Court has declared that a woman is somebody who is biologically born a woman. 'An outbreak of common sense from our judiciary and something I think nearly the whole population will agree with.' I have never supported men in women's prisons. — Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) August 5, 2025 Ms Frake, who also served as the head of security at HMP Wormwood Scrubs, told The Times: 'I'm not an expert on trans people, all that I know is that everybody should be treated with humanity and decency… 'There are equally vile women as there possibly are trans women. So it's all about the risk assessments for me, and each has to be done on an individual basis.' She said trans prisoners she had overseen were 'accepted' by other inmates. Ms Frake added: 'People who want to just say a blanket ban clearly have never stepped foot in a prison and seen how prison runs and how risk assessments on individuals happen.' Ms Rowling tweeted: 'Genuinely surprised anyone's shocked by this. 'Just because huge swathes of the Left have revealed themselves to be dripping in misogyny doesn't mean a massive chunk of the Right doesn't remain exactly as indifferent to women's rights and issues as it's always been.' She added: 'All those people who tell me support for women's single-sex spaces means I must support Reform (which I don't) appear to share exactly the same opinion on women's single-sex spaces as Reform.' 'Serious human rights issue' Fiona McAnena, the director of campaigns for Sex Matters, a women's rights charity, said: 'Gender ideology has prompted political careers to come crashing to the ground, across the political spectrum. 'Anyone who thinks they can 'just be kind' is guaranteed to come a cropper on this issue. When a politician starts talking about everyone's humanity, or a case by case approach, you know they have not thought it through. 'Single-sex provision has to exclude everyone of the other sex, as the Supreme Court made clear. 'All sorts of vulnerable men have to be kept safe in male prisons. Anyone suggesting that some men should be in a women's prison is demonstrating a complete disregard for women, as well as a failure to engage seriously in the issues.' She added: 'Politicians need to recognise that this is a serious human rights issue that can't be solved by hand-waving and talking about a small issue affecting a tiny minority or the most 'marginalised'. 'When sex matters in law, policy and public life, everyone is affected; denying that is particularly detrimental to women and girls, who are half the population.'
