‘Send them off to Rowanda’

Ex-Reform MP mistakes charity rowers for ‘illegal migrants’

- ATHENA STAVROU

Ex-Reform member Rupert Lowe has pledged £1,000 to a fundraiser after he mistook a charity rowing team for illegal migrants.

The now independent MP for Great Yarmouth had posted a picture on social media on Thursday night showing a boat near some wind turbines off the Norfolk coast. “Dinghies coming into Great Yarmouth, RIGHT NOW,” he wrote on X. “Authorities alerted, and I am urgently chasing. If these are illegal migrants, I will be using every tool at my disposal to ensure these individuals are deported.”

But the vessel pictured was, in fact, an ocean rowing boat crewed by ROW4MND, a team of four who are attempting to row from Land’s End to John O’Groats to raise money for motor neurone disease (MND).

The crew - Matthew Parker, Mike Bates, Aaron Kneebone and Liz Wardley - said they had been contacted by HM Coastguard and asked if they could see a dinghy nearby, but it soon became clear the service was asking about their own boat.