Shoreham lifeboat crews are there to save lives at sea

Rather than being terrified, we were brought up to know this was the lifeboat crew being summoned. Our thoughts would go to whoever it was at sea awaiting rescue by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.

I was also a Sea Scout and our headquarters was just behind Shoreham Lifeboat Station. We often spent time there chatting with the crew and coxswain about their rescue missions, either in the ocean-faring or inshore rescue boat. Not once did they say they only saved certain types of people nor that they vetted the origins of those in distress. Who would have thought, fifty-odd years on, discussions would rage about whether or not the RNLI should rescue would-be migrants in trouble at sea, yet here we are.

Following the rescuing of a boat containing 120 migrants off the Solent last week, a repulsive backlash against this historic, voluntary and noble service has exploded. Balaclava’d mobs took to the streets, attacked police and tried to stop the migrants leaving the port. Mandy Ward, a member of Hampshire Resistance, claimed the RNLI was “acting as a taxi service to people who are not in distress at all.” Oh, really Mandy? You know that do you? Another protester who cancelled her RNLI subscription said, “It breaks my heart to do that but I’m disgusted that the government is using the RNLI like this. It’s not what the RNLI is there to do.”

What? To save lives? I think that’s exactly what they are for. According to reports, Dorset Police were posted to a protest outside the RNLI’s Poole headquarters last Wednesday and Hampshire Police were patrolling RNLI sites amid fears that people and assets may be targeted. Sussex Police is investigating “offensive and threatening” remarks made on social media towards volunteers.

A life is a life and as the RNLI says, “a person in immediate danger at sea is a person in danger at sea.” How we ever got to the stage where we are seriously listening to arguments that the RNLI is facilitating illegal immigration is beyond my comprehension.

This is lifesaving, plain and simple. Dover volunteer Paula Lain arrived at one incident and saw people already in the water, some disappearing beneath the surface. One man had virtually no strength left and was grey-faced and terrified. She grabbed him and held on while colleagues pulled him aboard.

Walmer RNLI helm Dan Sinclair rescued a family from a sinking, overcrowded boat. There were men, women and children aboard, and he recalled a little girl looking directly at him and saying, “I love you, thank you.” He said the experience went straight to him as a father and, when he got home, he wanted to hug his own daughter.

These people are heroes whose only aim is to launch into the sea, however treacherous, find the people, keep them alive and get them somewhere safe. That might be to the shore, to hospital, or into the custody of the Border Force. The only thing that matters is saving lives.

In 2025, volunteer lifeboat crew members launched to rescue people in distress 9,058 times. Just 109 (1.2 per cent) of those were to small boats in the Channel. Of the 41,472 people recorded to have crossed the Channel in small boats that year, 94.3 per cent were aided by other agencies such as Border Force. Just 5.7 per cent were rescued by the RNLI.

Whatever your views on immigration policy, surely you are not so heartless as to suggest that those of us privileged enough to have homes and the right to live in the UK should allow those whose birthright is not so fortunate to perish at sea when we have the means to rescue them. If you are, where does it end? Do we stop deploying the fire service because there might be somebody from another country in the blazing building? Do our ambulance crews demand proof of ‘indefinite leave to remain’ before they tender emergency care and do our police turn their backs on victims of crime whose heritage might be unclear? Have the political debate by all means but let’s not demonise those who put their own lives at risk to save those of complete strangers.

Former Brighton and Hove police chief Graham Bartlett writes the Brighton-based Jo Howe crime novels and advises authors and TV companies on writing authentic crime and policing.