Spectator owner’s son calls for mine-laden ‘floating wall’ to stop Channel crossings

The son of the Spectator owner, Paul Marshall, has said Britain should construct a mine-laden “floating wall” as a radical measure to stop Channel crossings. Winston Marshall, a former member of the band Mumford & Sons who is now establishing himself as a rightwing online influencer, said that while the idea “might sound ridiculous”, it should be explored because previous attempts to stop the crossings had failed. Marshall, who launched his own YouTube show earlier this year vowing to cover topics “the corporate media won’t touch”, raised the idea in a Fox News discussion about a new £660m deal between the UK and France to tackle crossings, which he said had made him “pretty angry”. “This is an outlandish idea, but I think it’s actually feasible,” he said. “We’ve got to build a giant wall across the channel. This isn’t being talked about much. “I think if you consider that we spent £1bn now for six years trying to deter small boat crossings … We could build a floating wall, that’s mined, across the channel. “Now, that might sound ridiculous and it might even look ridiculous, but if it stops channel boat crossings…” Paul Marshall and his wife, Sabina de Balkany. Photograph: David M Benett/Dave Benett/ for UnHerd The Dover Strait, the narrowest part of the channel, is the busiest shipping lane in the world. Marshall suggested there should be “sections maybe that are mined [and] sections that are open to allow a proper operation”. …