Rupert Lowe has been left with egg on his face after he mistook a group of charity rowers for ‘illegal immigrants.’
In an embarrassing gaff, the independent MP for Great Yarmouth posted a furious tweet on Thursday about “dinghies coming into Great Yarmouth RIGHT NOW.”
Sharing a picture of a boat off the shore, Lowe said: “Authorities alerted, and I am urgently chasing. If these are illegal migrants, I will be using every tool at my disposal to ensure individuals are deported.”
“Enough is enough. Britain needs mass deportations. NOW.”
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But it turned out that the boat was in fact a charity rowing crew, who were subsequently radioed by the coastguard to say they had been “reported as a migrant boat.”
One of the crew members, Matthew Parker, told the BBC they were then followed along the coast by a “group of people with torches obviously waiting for us to land.”
After Lowe realised the humiliating gaff he had made, he posted on X that it had been a “false alarm,” and said he would donate £1,000 to the rowers’ campaign, which is raising money for motor neurone disease research.
The MP claimed he had received a “huge number of urgent complaints from constituents”, adding: “I make no apologies over being vigilant for my constituents. It is a national crisis. No mass deportations for the charity rowers, but we definitely need it for the illegal migrants!”
The ROW4MND crew are attempting a four-year endurance rowing campaign aiming to raise £57m for motor neurone disease research. You can read more about their efforts here.