British vigilantes’ new ‘Operation Overlord’ plan to stop Channel migrant boats

British vigilantes who have been banned from France after recording themselves slashing migrant boats have hatched a new plan to physically stop Channel crossings, aboard the “Cheeky Girl” power boat.

Daniel Thomas, 37, a former private schoolboy and associate of far-right activist Tommy Robinson has previously filmed himself at the French coast destroying small boats used by migrants to cross the English Channel.

He was also caught discussing a plot to send groups of British men to join his efforts in France under the banner of “Operation Overlord” but was banned from entering the country in January alongside nine others by the French interior minister who said “violent or hate-inciting actions have no place on our territory”.

Shorts – Quick stories

Chippies selling
catfish as ‘traditional fish supper’

Fish and chip shops are having
to sell catfish in order to cut
costs amid the US-Israeli war
with Iran, at a time when many have been forced to close or
raise prices.

Catfished?

An investigation by the BBC found fish and chip shops are selling catfish, which is significantly cheaper than cod or haddock. Catfish, which is safe to eat, costs £3.40 per kg, while cod or haddock typically go for around £15.

POLITICS

3 min read

MONEY

5 min read

Iran war coming for a national favourite

This comes amid fears rising costs could push further fish and chip shops will be forced to close.

Scott Walker, the chief executive of GB Potatoes, told Sky News this will be “inevitable” next year.

Rising costs for energy, cooking oil and fish have already forced many shops to close or raise prices.

Price rises ahead

Cost of living bites

The Government has already warned of months of price rises while the Bank of England predicted a worst-case scenario in which inflation could hit 6.2 per cent.

NEWS

4 min read

WEATHER

UK could be 27°C and hotter than Hawaii

Parts of the UK could be hotter than Hawaii on Friday, but forecasters have warned of possible heavy rain and thunder, with more changeable weather to come over the bank holiday weekend.

Parts of the UK could hit new high

Temperatures could reach a balmy 27°C in London and East Anglia at the end of the working week, the Met Office said, 10°C higher than averages for the time of year.

That would make Friday the warmest day of the year so far and surpass the forecast of 26°C in Honolulu, the capital of Hawaii. Cardiff, meanwhile, could hit 19°C on Friday, which would make it warmer than Athens.

Plenty of sun

“We’ve got some very warm, humid air coming up from the south,” Met Office meteorologist Simon Partridge said.

“That means we will see some very warm weather, particularly in the east and the south-east, because there we’ll see the best of the sunshine.”

LIFESTYLE

6 min read

LIFESTYLE

6 min read

Not the case for everyone

Variable weather

“Unfortunately, it doesn’t mean everybody’s going to get a warm, dry, beautiful day,” he added.

Central clouds

Clouds down the UK’s central spine from Scotland to the Pennines and the Midlands could produce heavy rain.

Thunder possible

There will be the “odd rumble of thunder” in the Midlands, the Met said, while large parts of the north will temperatures between 19-22°C.

Short of the record – and won’t last too long

• A 27°C peak still falls short of April’s all-time record high, though.
• That was recorded at 29.4°C in Camden Square, London, in 1949.
• And weather over the May Day weekend will be a different story.
• Temperatures will drop to April averages by Monday, with some weekend rain widely expected.

NEWS

2 min read

CRIME

Suspect charged with attempted murder after Golders Green 
attack

The terror suspect in Wednesday’s stabbing attack in Golders Green has been named and charged by the Metropolitan Police with multiple counts of attempted murder.

Golders Green suspect

• The suspect is Essa Suleiman, a Somali-born British national.
• Now of Camberwell, it is believed he previously lived in Southwark.
• He is reportedly a Somali translator and former school security guard.

LIVE

1 min read

Two separate attacks

Two Jewish victims, aged 76 and 34, were hurt in the knife attack in north-west London. The former, Moshe Ben Baila, is in a stable condition in hospital and the latter, Shloime Rand, has reportedly been discharged.

Suleiman, 45, was Tasered and arrested at the scene in Golders Green. Police have also charged the suspect in relation to a separate attack that left a man injured on Great Dover Street in Southwark earlier the same day.

What else has been reported?

The suspect was known to Prevent, the government’s anti-extremism programme

• Suleiman came to the UK legally as a child in the 1990s.
• He was reported to Prevent, the government’s anti-extremism programme, in 2020.
• The case against him was closed the same year.
• A group understood to be supportive of the Iranian regime has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Suspect to appear in court

In relation to the Golders Green attack, Suleiman faces two counts of attempted murder and one count of possession of a bladed article in a public place.

The suspect was also charged with attempted murder in relation to the incident in Southwark. He is due to appear at Westminster magistrates’ court on Friday.

UK terror threat level raised

• Counter Terrorism Policing are investigating the stabbing.
• It is the latest in a string of antisemitic attacks in the area.
• The UK’s terror threat level has been raised to “severe”.
• It is the first time this has happened since November 2021.

NEWS

3 min read

‘Wise’ bull named
after Attenborough 
to mark 100th birthday

BBC nature broadcaster Sir
David Attenborough has had a “wise” bull named after him by animal charity Peta to
celebrate his 100th birthday.

What you need to know

The bull, named Sir Attenbullock to celebrate his birthday on 8 May, will be mentioned in a letter sent to Attenborough by Peta founder Ingrid Newkirk, which will tell him the animal was among the first rescued through Peta India’s Delhi mechanisation project.

The initiative aims to replace animal-drawn carts with electric vehicles so the overworked animals can retire.

A closer look at the detail

In her letter, Newkirk writes that Sir Attenbullock is “strong, yet gentle”, which she says he shares with Attenborough, and adds that he also “quietly inspires others to appreciate the richness of the natural world”.

TELEVISION

3 min read

UK POLITICS

Everything to know about the May local elections

Your guide to the local elections next week, including where they are happening, timings and what could happen at the ballots.

What you need to know

• Elections are being held across Scotland, Wales and many parts of England on 7 May.
• Voters in Scotland will elect MSPs to the 129-seat parliament at Holyrood.
• In Wales, voters will choose members of the Senedd (Welsh parliament), which has been expanded from 60 seats to 96 for the first time.
• Meanwhile, in England 136 local authorities will hold elections on the same date. This includes all 32 London boroughs, 48 district councils and 18 unitary authorities.
• There are also local mayoral elections happening in: Croydon, Hackney, Lewisham, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Watford.

How will the results unfold?

• Polling stations open at 7am on Thursday 7 May. Voters in England will need to show a photo ID to be able to cast a vote.
• Thousands of people will take to the polls before they close at 10pm.
• In England, 46 of the local authorities will count and declare overnight, with results expected between 1am and 6am on 8 May.
• Ballot papers in Scotland and Wales will be counted during the day on 8 May, with the first results expected in the afternoon and the final declarations in the evening.
• The majority of the remaining English authorities will not begin counting until 9am on 8 May and are likely to start declaring results late in the morning and continue through to the evening.

Labour on course for disaster

One poll by Lord Robert Hayward predicted Labour will suffer devastating losses of more than 75 per cent of the council seats the party is defending across England.

Reform UK is expected to be the main beneficiary, projected to gain roughly 1,550 seats from both Labour and the Conservatives.

Big Read

4 min read

News

Stephen Fry sues conference for £100,000

The comedian, actor and presenter has brought a claim against the organisers of an AI conference at which he fell off the stage following his keynote address.

What you need to know

• Fry, 68, fell 6ft off the stage on to concrete at London’s O2 Arena in 2023.
• He broke his right leg, hip, pelvis and some ribs in the fall.
• Fry told BBC Radio Two: “I didn’t realise that I was walking off the part of the stage where there was nothing – just a six-foot drop.”
• The comedian is now suing CogX Festival and the event organiser, Blonstein Events, for personal injury damages.

TELEVISION

3 min read

A closer look at the detail

In court documents, his lawyers allege organisers failed to ensure “the stage and backstage area were safe, adequately lit and properly protected to prevent a fall from height”.

Fry took months off work after the incident, requiring “constant physiotherapy” for his injuries.

BOOKS

6 min read

Prediction tool
spots who needs weight-loss jabs
before obesity hits

People who are overweight
but not obese could be given
GLP-1s if they are identified
as at high risk of suffering from obesity-related complications.

What you need to know

Predicting disease risk

Obscore was created by academics from Queen Mary University of London and the Berlin Institute of Health.

Complements BMI

The model offers a more accurate way to spot people at higher risk of cancer and type 2 diabetes.

Catch issues in advance

The project identified 20 commonly collected readings which can be used to predict 18 different complications.

Tool could stop at-risk patients falling through the net

Dr Kamil Demircan, from Queen Mary University, said: “We actually observed that a considerable proportion of individuals were living with overweight rather than obesity.

“These constitute a population of individuals who may be overlooked if we only look at BMI and not other risk factors.”

SCIENCE

4 min read

The hotspots where it’s most difficult to sell your home

The average length of time to sell a home is just a day longer than a year ago despite
higher mortgages,
although in London homes are taking nearly a week longer
to be snapped up typically, according to a property website.

A closer look at the figures

33 days

Across the UK, the average time to sell a home is 33 days, just one day longer than last year.

6 days

The London area stands out as being particularly affected by recent events, with the average home there taking six days longer to sell than a year ago, the report found.

The locations on the list of hotspots

Here is how long on average it takes to sell a home, according to Zoopla analysis of the seven weeks to 17 April, 2025 and the seven weeks to 17 April, 2026:

• Scotland – 15, 15
• North East – 28, 28
• Yorkshire and the Humber – 31, 31
• North West – 28, 31
• Wales – 34, 34
• West Midlands – 33, 34
• South West – 36, 35
• East Midlands – 37, 37
• East of England – 35, 38
• South East – 37, 39
• London – 35, 41

What do experts say?

Mortgage rates are drifting lower and there is greater choice of homes for sale

The best-value homes are moving quickly, particularly in northern cities and Scotland, whereas the room for negotiation is greater across southern regions,” Richard Donnell, executive director of Zoopla said.

Despite this, Thomas has returned to social media with a new plot to swerve that restriction, by hiring a fishing boat and taking to the Channel with a small group of helpers to intercept boats in the water instead.

He was ostracised from a wider group of anti-migrant vigilantes following a public falling out earlier this year but is now attempting to revive the mission to stop small boat crossings, first revealed by The i Paper in November last year.

The real Operation Overlord – the Allies’ invasion of occupied Europe during the Second World War, beginning on D-Day, 1944 – was considered a complete success and was planned in absolute secrecy.

Thomas’s version includes a video he shared with thousands of social media followers, showing his attempt to buy a boat and urging them to “join the fight” by intimidating migrants into turning back from the English coast.

Asking for donations to secure the boat, he told his followers, “We cannot do this without her [the boat]” adding, “Every true patriot knows what’s at stake.”

The Home Office, Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and Coastguard have all warned against a person attempting to cross the Channel without training, including to intercept boats as an untrained civilian. They said that this would be risking their lives and others and also risks criminal liability in the UK and in other legal jurisdictions.

The vessel Thomas hoped would strike fear into the heart of those making the dangerous crossing in his video shared at the start of this month was named the Cheeky Girl.

Thomas has said he plans to join with “ex-military [and] navy guys” to “document and take action where the British government refuse to do so” and that he and his new band of vigilantes want to “show you how easy it is to prevent some of these crossings from occurring by taking action”.

He has also said there will be “no illegal action. We won’t be approaching any of the migrants, we won’t be touching any of the migrants at sea” but that “it is about time we do something to make them start to think that we are on to them”.

Thomas failed to buy Cheeky Girl, which he was allowed to spend more than 30 minutes viewing, telling the potential sellers that he wanted to use it for a fishing trip with his child.

Instead, after making repeated pleas for donations, Thomas appears to have obtained a different, smaller boat. “Rule, Britannia!” he told his followers in an update on Tuesday, saying the new boat would bear the name “The Patriot”.

His commandeering of a boat to cross the Channel will call to mind for some a second victorious mission of World War Two – the Dunkirk evacuation codenamed Operation Dynamo. But instead of a flotilla of hundreds of civilian fishing boats and yachts joining destroyers to rescue British soldiers trapped on French beaches, Thomas appears to be in a Naval battalion of one.

There is no indication that Thomas or his supporters have yet used a boat to enter the Channel.

He has acknowledged that attempting to do so as a novice sailor is dangerous, telling his followers he was trying to “go out in this boat and get used to her movements [and gain] the ability to control her because when it comes to the English Channel… it’s one of the most dangerous stretches of sea that we have”.

Both the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and the RNLI urges people to complete formal training before operating vessels at sea, with the English Channel known for having a high-level of maritime traffic, including large container ships. Boats frequently get into difficulty in the Channel and in the English sea, with more than 9,000 RNLI lifeboats launched last year.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We recognise the frustration surrounding small boat crossings. However, taking the law into your own hands will not resolve the issue and can put you in danger.”

They added: “The Home Secretary has signed a landmark new deal with France to boost enforcement action on beaches and put people smugglers behind bars. This builds on joint work that has seen more than 42,000 small boat crossing attempts prevented since the election.”

The Government has said its new UK-France deal to tackle illegal crossings will result in a 40 per cent increase in law enforcement and intelligence officers tasked with preventing migrants from crossing the Channel, as well as an increase in drone surveillance and helicopters monitoring the area.

Government figures indicate nearly 60,000 illegal migrants and foreign criminals have been returned or deported from the UK since the 2024 election up to the start of this year, and this paper understands the UK is monitoring efforts from migrants to cross into England from Belgium.

Anti-migrant sentiment in the UK has led to a number of protests across the country, with local residents and far-right groups taking to the street to demonstrate against asylum seeker and migrant accommodation costs and locations.