24/09/2026
Statement from Cllr Steve Pitt:
Yesterday, there was a special meeting of Full Council. Reform called the meeting to discuss the small boat arrival on 6th September.
If you listen to the narrative they are now trying to spin online, Liberal Democrats voted down their motion because we didn't want to tell the government not to send any more small boats to Portsmouth.
That is absolute rubbish and they know it.
We had already written to the Prime Minister, before Reform's motion was even published, to explain in the strongest terms that due to complex operational, welfare, security and public safety reasons, the city is the wrong place for small boat landings.
Government listened and wrote back to us just before the meeting and has said that it is impossible to say 'never' but that Portsmouth is not part of any plans to land any more small boats here and that they have heard the city's concerns. I read their statement out in full at the start of the meeting.
So, why did we vote down Reform's motion?
1. It sought to draw a distinction between members of the emergency services being seriously injured by protestors and slightly injured by protestors. That's a disgrace. It is never acceptable to cause injury to any member of the emergency services.
2. It failed to condemn attacks on the RNLI, implying that because no one has been charged with any crime, it's somehow ok to abuse them and promote defunding them. It isn't. The RNLI are heroes.
3. Reform, like successive governments, only talk about the symptoms, not the cause. The botched Brexit took us out of the Dublin Agreement which allowed us to return asylum seekers to the first EU country they arrived in. The deal took away our access to the database, which told us which country that was. The deal limited our access to Europol, so that it takes longer and is less straightforward to check the backgrounds of those arriving. We need a fair, safe and legal asylum system that quickly and effectively processes claims and that will massively reduce the cost and put fairness back into the process.
We know that people are hurting. We know the cost of living crisis is still very real. We know people have fears and concerns. We get it. We listen and we work hard every day to use the very limited powers and funding we do have to try to help as many people as we can. That's what local politics is really all about.
We are not interested in playing the games Reform want to play and by their rules. That is why we rejected their motion.
This city deserves serious and common sense politics, not populist clap-trap, promoting bitterness and division just to feed the egos of its Reform leaders.
