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10 Raise the Colours activists have been banned from travelling to France
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after being accused of destroying small boats used by illegal migrants attempting to reach the UK
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Now, the French Interior Ministry confirmed today that the ban prevents the group from entering or remaining in French territory
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So, well, my understanding of that is basically ever going to France. So, the French have accused them of being far-right activists
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They say they carry out these vigilante-style slashings of the small boats. Be interested to see what evidence they have for that, though, of course
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The operation Raise the Colours began as a grassroots campaign around August last year, encouraging Brits to fly the St George's Cross
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and the Union Jack in public. Now, towards the end of the year, some members of the group
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travelled to northern France to see the illegal migrant crisis for themselves, and they reported on it whilst they were over there
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In doing so, many people felt as though they embarrassed the French police a bit, and then here we are
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Well I joined now by the co of Raise the Colours It Ryan Bridge and Elliot Stanley Thank you very much for joining us in the studio Thank you Great to have you Why did you and do you want to go over there then
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Well, firstly, obviously it started as a flag movement in Birmingham and it sort of took on from there
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And we all know the real problem of what's going on in the country. and it's the illegal invasion of these illegal migrants
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economic migrants, coming into our country. And we thought we'll go and see for ourselves. And on doing so, we went into the country
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and within sort of five or ten minutes, there was a camp and another camp and people moving
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And you can see it was all being orchestrated throughout Calais, all the way up and down the coast
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And we monitored it and we thought, from doing a good thing on the flags
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we thought we'd look to try and save the country and have a go at, you know, a bit of patriotism
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and get into where the real problem was. And so what does that look like So when you guys were over there because obviously what the French police or the French government have said right is that firstly they accused you of being far right I obviously let you come back to that but also some things about you know stealing life jackets and slashing boats and interrupting police operations
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That's what they're claiming. So what is it that you guys were doing out there
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I would refute the claim that we have interrupted any police operations at all
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Everything we've done has been lawful and legal over there, from our understanding
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We have found some destroyed boats in the sand dunes. You know, they were destroyed when we found them, unbelievably
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And we have monitored the... We've been in the sand dunes at three in the morning
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monitoring the activity of the migrants, monitoring the activity of the police and the military over there
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We soon worked out that it's a big orchestrated ploy from our understanding
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The NGOs are helping to facilitate the movement of the illegal migrants over there But we haven done as I said we haven done anything that we believe is illegal
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And we have no intention of doing anything that is illegal. And on that, so the police and the French government
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have been pretty strong here, right? They're essentially banning probably both of you personally
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but the wider movement... There's ten of us at the start and people have joined and whatnot
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and then we've got a massive following at raisethecolours.org.uk. People behind us are just unbelievable
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People really... I think the whole country's woken up to see that if we can go there and discover what we've discovered
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how come the police in France are not doing anything about it
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How come our police aren't doing anything about it? And I think that we've got them sort of quaking in their berets
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or their boots, as you say. So I believe that what we're doing at Raisethecolours
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is not going to stop. We're not going to stop doing what we've done, what we've got planned
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We want to do this legally, lawfully, and we want to orchestrate to..
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Well, talk to me about that
