Reform has been accused of hitting a “sickening new low” after the party launched a small boats mobile game.
As the party continues to face questions over whether £72m of donations from crypto billionaires will comply with electoral law, it seems Reform are already spending some of the cash on a truly awful game.
On Monday, Reform unveiled Small Boat Scramble, a game in which players take control of a Royal Navy vessel to turn small boats back in the Channel.
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Announcing the game on social media, Reform’s home affairs spokesperson Zia Yusuf said the highest scoring player over the next month would win £5,000.
The use of a Royal Navy vessel in the game is a reference to Reform’s plans to use the navy to stop dinghies reaching the English coast. The plans were widely debunked as unfeasible and possibly illegal by voices on both the left and right, with France saying they would be a violation of its sovereignty.
Reacting to the game, Nathan Phillips, head of campaigns at Asylum Matters, said it was a “sickening new low” for Reform, the Mirror reports.
He said: “Human beings are dying in uncounted numbers in our Channel. The fact that any political party feels able not only to gamify people’s lives and deaths like this, but to offer up cash rewards to their followers for ‘playing’, is a sickening new low which demonstrates how far towards the dehumanisation of people seeking safety our political discourse has fallen.”
Along with being a clear attempt to distract from questions over the party’s finances and backers, the game is blatantly trying to keep the issue of small boat crossings at the top of the political agenda.
This is despite the fact statistics show the number of crossings and migrants arriving on small boats has been coming down in recent months as Labour work to get the issue under control.
The game could also be yet another example of Reform copying Donald Trump’s administration. Earlier this month, the White House launched a games platform where people can play MAGA-themed arcade games about deporting people and building a border wall.