# Tony Smith says safe returns need suitable vessels and French consent Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/tony-smith-says-safe-returns-need-suitable-vessels-and/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy. - Speaker: [Tony Smith CBE](https://realalpha.app/people/tony-smith-cbe/) · Tony Smith CBE is a former senior UK border official. · Led UK Border Force and the London 2012 border operation; advises governments and industry on border management. - Host: [Konstantin Kisin](https://realalpha.app/people/konstantin-kisin/) - Host: [Francis Foster](https://realalpha.app/people/francis-foster/) - Show: TRIGGERnometry - Episode: ["I Policed the Border for 40 Years - the System is Broken" - Tony Smith CBE](https://realalpha.app/v/lpUVkk2nxhk/), Oct 21, 2026 - Moment: 34:21 to 38:33 of the episode (4 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/tony-smith-says-safe-returns-need-suitable-vessels-and/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/lpUVkk2nxhk/?t=2061 ## Quote > “The first thing you're doing is **pulling them out of the water**, putting them on your boat.” > — [Tony Smith CBE](https://realalpha.app/people/tony-smith-cbe/) at [36:32](https://realalpha.app/v/lpUVkk2nxhk/?t=2192) · TRIGGERnometry ## Takeaways 1. Smith says towing dinghies could overturn them and put lives at risk. 2. Smith says Australian operators used purpose-built boats for return journeys. 3. Smith says French agreement is needed for joint patrols and returns. ## About this segment Tony Smith CBE says towing unseaworthy dinghies risks capsizing them and drowning people. He describes Australia's use of return-capable vessels and says a UK-French agreement could enable direct returns. From “"I Policed the Border for 40 Years - the System is Broken" - Tony Smith CBE”, Oct 21, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/lpUVkk2nxhk/) ## Transcript Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there. [34:24](https://realalpha.app/v/lpUVkk2nxhk/?t=2064) So this is one thing that... I'm going to ask you a bunch of stupid questions because we all have them, I guess, things that will be obvious to you but maybe not obvious to the ordinary person. Why can't we just tow the boats back to France? Probably because people will drown when you do that. I mean, I went out on the boats a couple of years ago with a border force, and these boats are not seaworthy. [34:46](https://realalpha.app/v/lpUVkk2nxhk/?t=2086) Even the big ones aren't really seaworthy. i mean they're they're bobbling around in the ocean and there's people so what would be the first thing that i mean what you can do throw a tow rope out there to the boat and start towing it it will probably overturn people are going In the water, someone will die. Whose fault is that going to be? What do you think will be happening when you have the steward's inquiry back here? [35:03](https://realalpha.app/v/lpUVkk2nxhk/?t=2103) A border force out there with a rope trying to tie them back? So I would protect the officers. I said, wait a minute, are you saying that my officers will be culpable with homicide if we cause a drowning by an act like that? So I think that's... So what the Australians did, because I did study... That's what I was going to ask you. Yeah, so I did study that. I went down there and I know some of the guys that worked on sovereign borders. Great guys, great guys. [35:26](https://realalpha.app/v/lpUVkk2nxhk/?t=2126) they actually interdicted on the high seas but they didn't push the boats back what some of those boats that were doing that were coming out of Indonesia well they were actually drilling holes in the bottom of the boat they were scuttling the boats and so that says you have to rescue me this is all based on the law of the sea and rescue which is a sensible law when you think about it you don't want people drowning do you? [35:47](https://realalpha.app/v/lpUVkk2nxhk/?t=2147) not really, no, not really so preservation of life is paramount therefore you've got to do so out of rescue so when they're scuttling the boats Well, the Australians said, well, OK, so we can't take them back on that boat. We'll create our... So they built their own boats, purpose-built boats, to take them back, to escort them back. And because they were in the high seas, they could. And there wasn't the political pressure to get here. [36:06](https://realalpha.app/v/lpUVkk2nxhk/?t=2166) So the Indonesians said, well, it's not very... it doesn't look good. So they even adapted the boats to make them look like fishing boats so it didn't become so visible to the Indonesian population. But they took them off the boat they were on and put them on another boat, which was fit for return. So if we're going to do returns, that's what I would say. Well, that's what I've been saying to politicians we've had on the show, but everyone says, why can't we do that? Why is that impossible? [36:31](https://realalpha.app/v/lpUVkk2nxhk/?t=2191) You could do that. You could take... You can't do that. Well, wait a minute, you do that anyway, right? I mean, what are you doing when you come alongside a dinghy? The first thing you're doing is pulling them out of the water, putting them on your boat. Right. Now they're on your boat. Your boat can go wherever you want it to go. Right. So you could... Now, the problem you've got then is, well, will the French allow a Border Force vessel to dock in France? [36:48](https://realalpha.app/v/lpUVkk2nxhk/?t=2208) So they've been home office, people have been over there and talked to them, and the answer is no, they won't. They say, no, you can't bring that boat back here. You're not going to... This is where the fight has now become. Well, you could, under international law, I wrote something about this when this all started, under international law, it's OK in a contiguous zone. Contiguous zones means that you've got two territorial waters colliding with one another, so it's a contiguous 24-mile zone. [37:11](https://realalpha.app/v/lpUVkk2nxhk/?t=2231) Come to an agreement with the country on the other side. That's perfectly permissible under the law of the sea and international law. So we could come to an agreement with the French if they were up for it. So, well, you could put people on our boats, if you like, and we'll put people on your boats, and we could have joint boats. It don't matter. But as a matter of principle, if we can show that there's no risk of what they call refoulement, in other words, if you're taken back to that country, you're going to face immediate return to, you know, we could take back to France, right? [37:37](https://realalpha.app/v/lpUVkk2nxhk/?t=2257) So that would be the ideal solution, is the French would say, yes, OK, why don't we have a, you know, we'll have an agreement with the Brits, Brits and French, we'll have joint patrols. The first thing, we'll make them safe, right, because that's what everyone's worried about people drowning let's make them safe so whether they're getting brought on because they don't want to be rescued by the french they'll resist rescue by the french because they know what's going to happen you know they've even been holding like babies over the water line when the french have gone near them to say that we're going to drop this kid in the water that's how brutal it is out there all right so so the french tactics is so well they won't look we don't want to drown them either we're going to make sure they're safe and [38:11](https://realalpha.app/v/lpUVkk2nxhk/?t=2291) just in case they go in the water then we will but if they're not in the water and then we take over and bring them ashore. That is the business model they rely on, but we could, if we had agreement, that's a big if, if we had agreement with the French, we could have joint patrols and take them straight back to France, which would be the perfect solution. The problem we've got is we don't have that agreement with France.