Nigel Farage calls RNLI a “migrant taxi service”

The RNLI has hit out at accusations made by the right-wing political activist Nigel Farage that it is operating a “migrant taxi service” and facilitating illegal migration.

The intuition, which is manned by volunteers and funded by charitable donations, said it does not take a stance on political matters and that its sole purpose is to save lives.

The RNLI’s chief executive, Mark Dowie, a former naval officer, told the Guardian he was very proud of the institution’s humanitarian work and that “these islands have the reputation for doing the right thing and being decent societies, and we should be very proud of the work we’re doing to bring these people home safe.”

“Imagine being out of sight of land, running out of fuel, coming across incredibly busy shipping lanes when you’re frightened and you don’t know which direction you’re going in. That is by anyone’s standards distress. Our role in this is incredible important: simply to respond to a need to save lives,” said Mark Dowie, the chief executive of the RNLI.

One volunteer described an especially harrowing encounter: “They’d paddled this thing about 80% of the way across the Channel and they’d been doing this all night. They’d made it into the middle of the shipping lane, and they were just so exhausted they couldn’t go on and they had nothing left and they’d stopped. When we got there, they were so tired they hardly reacted to us.”