France’s lifeboat service declined to take 120 migrants off a large inflatable dinghy heading for Portsmouth, saying any attempt to transfer them at sea could have endangered those on board.

The Prefecture of Manche spent around £90,000 on an operation involving five vessels and two helicopters, which tracked the unstable boat as it travelled from Utah Beach in Normandy towards England’s South Coast.

After the dinghy crossed into British waters, the migrants were collected by two RNLI lifeboats and brought to Eastney ferry port, where they arrived on Sunday and were met by hundreds of anti-migrant demonstrators.

Four of the five boats following the so-called mega-dinghy were operated by the SNSM, France’s counterpart to the RNLI.

But the French volunteer rescue organisation decided against allowing the migrants onto its lifeboats after judging the transfer too dangerous, leaving the rescue and landing to the RNLI.

A spokesman for the prefecture said: ‘Determined to reach the United Kingdom, migrants making the crossing in makeshift vessels refuse the assistance offered by French services and only accept it when faced with situations of extreme urgency.

‘Given the structural fragility of the boats, which are consistently overloaded, the decision has been taken not to force migrants to board state-run rescue vessels, so as to avoid putting their lives at risk in the event of a shipwreck.’

Every ship and harbourmaster is bound by Article 98 of the United Nations convention on the law of the sea and the safety of life at sea convention to help anyone in distress in the water when their lives are at risk.

Distress is defined as ‘a situation wherein there is reasonable certainty that a person, a vessel or other craft is threatened by grave and imminent danger and requires immediate assistance’.

Rescuers are meant to avoid attempting to board or redirect a boat if there is a danger it could capsize. 

But Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp warned that France’s failure to intervene in the early stages of migrant crossings was ‘putting lives at risk’. 

‘Around 100 people have died trying to cross the Channel already. The French could easily end this – they could stop the boats as they embark in knee-deep water, or stop them at sea near the French coast.

‘The Belgians do this, and the Australians have done it in the past, with no loss of life at all. Allowing this to continue simply puts more lives at risk and allows the illegal crossings to continue. 

‘Shabana Mahmood should not be paying £660m of our money while the French refuse to do what other countries will do.’

The two RNLI lifeboats were denied entry to two larger ports before docking near Portsmouth, it emerged yesterday. 

Their crews were barred from docking at Southampton Port and Portsmouth Harbour, with governing bodies threatening legal action if they did so. 

A broadcast on an open marine VHF radio revealed that Southampton Vessel Traffic Service and King’s Harbour Master Portsmouth denied the RNLI permission to enter either port or their approaches and failure to comply could result in criminal prosecution.

The crews of the Bembridge and Yarmouth lifeboats therefore decided to sail several miles further along the coast and dock instead at Eastney, where the confrontation later unfolded.

Large crowds blocked traffic along the road leading away from the port in an attempt to stop the migrants reaching a processing centre in Kent. Police were seen carrying riot shields as they confronted the black-clad mob.

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Hampshire Police Federation claimed two officers were pushed off motorbikes, while others had bricks thrown at them. 

The chaos came a day after masked anti-migrant protesters blocked traffic at the Port of Dover.

Hard-Right organisation Patriot Platform – run by convicted attempted kidnapper Daniel Thomas – claimed responsibility for the demonstrations in Portsmouth and Dover. 

The migrant ‘mega-dinghy’ had travelled about 70 miles from the Normandy coast, becoming the first migrant boat known to have completed such a lengthy crossing. Its route was far removed from the usual transit point between Calais and Dover.

The decision to land the migrants in Portsmouth has sparked a major row, with Portsmouth City Council leader Steve Pitt accusing the Home Office of ‘poor judgment’.

He said: ‘The Government needs to take more action to prevent small boat crossings. Clearly people are not happy with the situation and we respect everyone’s right to protest, but it should be done peacefully and within the law.

‘We are pleased the coaches were eventually able to leave Portsmouth early this morning to take people outside Hampshire for processing in the normal way.

‘The council wasn’t asked about the decision to land the lifeboats in Portsmouth. This was entirely a decision taken by UK Border Force, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and the Home Office.

‘It was a completely unsuitable location to bring the boats ashore. This entire situation was avoidable and has brought needless disruption to our city. I would like to thank the emergency services for their professionalism under very challenging circumstances.

‘However, the Home Office has some serious questions to answer about its lack of planning, inconsistent decision-making and, ultimately, poor judgment. It put people at risk. This cannot happen again.’

There are now fears more dinghies will make the long-distance sea voyage from Normandy as smugglers evolve their tactics.

A senior French interior ministry source told the Daily Mail: ‘The geographical focus of the people smugglers is definitely changing.

‘They are finding it much harder to get boats launched in the Pas-de-Calais and so are moving west to Normandy.

‘We expect far more of the mega-dinghies to appear here in the coming weeks and months. The success on Sunday proved the voyage can be done.’

Occupants of the Portsmouth dinghy, including 20 women and eight ‘very young children’, refused rescue after their outboard motor broke down, according to French officials.

A Home Office spokesman said: ‘We condemn the intimidating and thuggish behaviour we saw in Portsmouth last night.

‘The right to peaceful protest is fundamental to our democracy, but it must never cross the line into disorder. We thank the emergency services who safely managed this situation.

‘This Government is doing the hard and necessary work of bearing down on small boat crossings, with the lowest number of arrivals between June and August since 2020.’

The RNLI helped more than 36,000 people across its lifeboat and lifeguard services last year, with crews launching more than 9,000 times to assist those in distress at sea.

RNLI lifeboat crews insist they have a duty to rescue anyone at sea, regardless of who they are.

DALLAS—President Donald Trump used his Wednesday keynote address at the Republican National Convention to frame the upcoming election as a stark choice for the country: continued prosperity if Republicans keep control of Congress, or a setback if Democrats take power.

Trump walked onto the stage at the American Airlines Center to Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA,” opening the first night of an unusual midterm Republican National Convention. The Dallas arena, home to the Mavericks and Stars, hosted an event that breaks from tradition, as national party conventions have typically been reserved for presidential election years, when parties formally nominate their White House candidates.

From the outset, Trump made clear that his speech would center on the stakes he believes voters face in November.

“In 55 days, Americans will be going to the polls in one of the most important elections in our country’s history. Your vote will decide whether our country stumbles at the starting gate of the next 250 years or surges forward and never ever looks back,” he said.

Trump warned that giving control to what he called “the radical left Democrats” would leave the nation struggling for years to recover. By contrast, he urged voters to back Republicans, saying the party would position the United States to “leave the world in our dust for generations to come.”

Trump stressed that 35 key races will decide the majorities in the Senate and House come November. Republicans hold the Senate with a 53-47 majority over Democrats and independents in their caucus, and in the House, Republicans hold a 218-214 majority. Republicans look to defend key Senate seats in Texas, North Carolina, Iowa, and Ohio, and can flip Democrat seats in Michigan, Maine, and Georgia. Trump carried all of these states, except for Maine, in 2024. He intends to visit every state where a race is on a knife’s edge.

“We have a very short period of time, and we really have 35 races. They all count, but we have 35 races that are, I guess you’d call swings, right? Like we had seven swing states, we won all seven, right? Yeah. So I said, not that I’m looking for the work. You know, I said the other day I got so much of a schedule. I said, ‘I thought I won. What do I have to do? I’m campaigning,’ But I am. We’re campaigning to make it incredible,” he said. 

“The ones that are very close—they might be winning by a little, or losing by a little, or tied—we can win every one of those races,” he said. “But I’m going to go to every one of those states for congressmen and Senators… and we’re going to have rallies just like this.”

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Democrats have worked for much of Trump’s second term to make “affordability” a key midterm issue, but Trump hammered Democrats on Wednesday for the nearly five-decade high inflation they sparked in the Biden years through immense spending and green energy policies.

By the time Jessica Fick turned 31, she had hit a financial turning point: her retirement savings had grown large enough that she could potentially stop contributing altogether.

Rather than keep funneling cash into investment accounts, Fick could allow the money she had already set aside to compound on its own for the next several decades.

The approach is called coast FI, short for coast financial independence, and it is becoming increasingly popular with younger Americans looking for an alternative to spending their careers chasing bigger paychecks solely to secure retirement.

Unlike the more widely known FIRE movement — financial independence, retire early — coast FI does not necessarily require walking away from work decades ahead of schedule.

Instead, the concept is simple: once a person has saved enough in retirement accounts, those investments may be able to grow to the desired retirement goal over time without any additional contributions.

When it works, coast FI can give people the freedom to work fewer hours, take a lower-paying job, change careers, start a business or simply enjoying the life they are living today.

Fick is 39 now and living in New Hampshire, but eight years ago she realized that the $300,000 she had saved could potentially grow to almost $3 million by age 65 if it returned an average of 7 percent annually – and she wouldn’t even have to save one more dollar. 

The idea came at a particularly important moment. About a year before discovering coast FI, she had left a six-figure corporate job after suffering severe burnout.

Fick had been working in human resources, and much of her identity had been bound up in professional success.

Eventually she realized she didn’t want to spend her life working all week only to spend evenings, weekends and vacations recovering from her job.

‘I had already built a solid foundation by saving and investing consistently throughout my twenties,’ Fick told the Daily Mail.

‘That’s what made coast FI so powerful for me,’ she said. ‘It helped me realize that the savings I’d accumulated weren’t just preparing me for retirement someday. They could actually give me options much sooner.’

Rather than returning immediately to another demanding corporate role, Jessica took a part-time HR position at a nonprofit.

The job paid considerably less, but it gave her something she had been missing: time and balance. Then, in 2019, she discovered Coast FI while researching financial independence.

‘It showed me that once you’ve saved enough for your retirement investments to grow on their own, you don’t necessarily have to keep optimizing for the highest salary,’ she said.

‘Instead, you have the freedom to make career decisions based on what matters most to you.’

The discovery gave Fick the confidence not to increase her working hours simply to earn more. Instead, she began experimenting with a different future.

In 2020, Fick launched The Fioneers, a business focused on financial independence and lifestyle design, while continuing to work part-time.

By 2021, the business had grown enough for her to leave her nonprofit job and work on it full-time. Fick’s husband eventually joined her, leaving his own job in 2023.

Later that year, the couple decided to take the full coast FI approach and stopped contributing to their retirement accounts. They had $300,000 saved, but Fick stresses that everyone has to set their own coast FI goal based on their own needs and preferences.

The amount depends on factors including your age, anticipated retirement lifestyle, spending needs and assumptions about investment returns.

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These factors can change. Inflation, healthcare costs, market downturns and major life events such as having children or buying a home could all alter someone’s financial needs decades down the line.

Fick views coast FI as a planning tool rather than a guarantee. The real benefit, she believes, is what happens psychologically when people realize they have built a robust financial cushion.

‘Many people assume they need far more money than they actually do before they have options,’ Fick told us.

‘Calculating your coast FI number can help you see where you stand and what opportunities might already be within reach.’

Her own experience illustrates exactly what those options can look like. Today, Fick and her husband continue to run The Fioneers because they genuinely enjoy the work – not to maximize their income.

Their earnings vary from year to year because they are business owners, but they have deliberately designed their spending around what matters most to them.

They own their home and car outright, while their biggest expenses tend to be home improvements and travel.

The couple also work part-time and spend several months each year travelling in their campervan. For Fick, that’s the real point of coast FI.

‘It isn’t just about reaching a financial milestone,’ she told us. ‘It’s about creating a life you don’t want to retire from.’

Fick believes younger workers should focus not only on calculating how much they need for retirement, but also consider what they want their lives to look like before they stop working.

‘What kind of life do I want? What does success actually look like to me? If money weren’t the deciding factor, how would I want to spend my time?’ she said.

There’s no need to wait until hitting your coast FI number to start making changes. 

Fick suggests experimenting with smaller lifestyle changes, such as reducing working hours, trying freelancing, taking up a new hobby, volunteering or simply making more time for family and friends.

She also does not believe everyone needs to stop investing once they reach coast FI. For some people, the milestone may simply mean reducing their contributions rather than stopping them altogether.

The concept has gained wider attention as younger Americans grapple with high living costs, an uncertain job market and growing doubts about what traditional retirement will look like.

Coast FI is frequently discussed alongside FIRE, which has traditionally focused on saving aggressively enough to leave the workforce decades before the usual retirement age. But Fick feels that coast FI is less all-or-nothing.

‘You don’t have to wait until you’ve reached coast FI to start moving in that direction,’ she said.

‘No matter where you are on your financial journey, you can begin taking small steps and running little experiments to learn what brings you energy and fulfillment.’

For Fick, the journey began with burnout and an unexpected career detour. What initially felt like a professional crisis ultimately gave her the opportunity to reconsider what she wanted from work and money.

Her hope now is that other people will realize they may have more choices than they think.

‘My goal isn’t just to help people reach Coast FI,’ she said. ‘It’s to help them use money as a tool to intentionally create lives that reflect their values.’

And that, she argues, may be the biggest attraction of all.

The devastated relatives of a 26-year-old woman who died after being hit by a taxi have described her as a cherished young woman who was embracing life in the “city she loved.”

Isobel “Izzy” Reyland was struck by a white Toyota Voxy private hire taxi on Aigburth Road in Liverpool at about 5.40pm last Wednesday.

The 26-year-old, originally from south Wales, was taken to hospital after the crash but sadly died from her injuries a short time later.

A week on from the fatal collision, Izzy’s family have shared an emotional tribute to the young woman, who had relocated to Liverpool to build the career she wanted and chase her ambitions.

In a deeply moving statement, they said: “Izzy was a loving and dearly loved daughter, sister, aunty, granddaughter, niece, cousin and sister-in-law, taken from us in the most tragic way far too soon. She will be missed more than words can ever express, always.

‘She was a beautiful, caring, funny and loving young lady who was following her dreams and her chosen career in a city she loved and living her life to the fullest.

‘We are totally devastated and utterly heartbroken as a family at the loss of our darling Izzy. Izzy – you will always be with us and our deepest love for you is everlasting.’

The fatal crash happened on the city-bound carriageway of Aigburth Road, close to Fulwood Road.

In the immediate aftermath, members of the public reportedly rushed to Izzy’s aid, with witnesses saying people performed CPR before emergency services arrived.

The taxi driver, a 41-year-old man, remained at the scene and was arrested on suspicion of causing death by careless or inconsiderate driving while under the influence of drugs.

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He has since been released under investigation.

Merseyside Police detectives are continuing to investigate the circumstances surrounding the collision and have appealed for anyone who may have information to come forward.

Detective Sergeant Andy Roper, from the force’s Matrix serious collision investigation unit, said: ‘First and foremost my thoughts and those of my team remain with the woman’s family at this sad time. Road death causes devastation for all those involved and it is our absolute priority to get answers for her family.

‘An investigation has been launched to ascertain the circumstance of this collision and we are following up a number of lines of enquiry including speaking to potential witnesses and examining CCTV in the area.

‘Aigburth Road is a very busy road and we know at that time there would have been a large volume of vehicles including buses, taxis and delivery drivers, together with pedestrians, in the area.

‘I would urge anyone who may have witnessed the incident or was travelling in the area at the time with a dashcam fitted to their vehicle to make contact with our team so that we can check if it has captured anything which may provide answers surrounding this collision.

‘Also, if you live in the area and have a CCTV system or Ring doorbell, I would be grateful if you could check your footage to see if you captured anything.’

A police spokesperson said: ‘Anyone with information on the incident should contact Merseyside Police serious collision investigation unit on 0151 777 5747 quoting incident reference 26000720150.

‘Alternatively, contact the independent charity Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111, or via their website here: In an emergency always call 999.’

Do you have a story? Email lettice.bromovsky@dailymail.co.uk 

Dave Hughes has built a career on saying exactly what he thinks, and he is not changing course now.

The outspoken 55-year-old comedian has floated a striking theory about Victoria’s new Premier, Ben Carroll, suggesting the freshly appointed state leader may have been paying very close attention to his social media commentary.

Discussing Victoria’s latest political shift on the Daily Mail podcast The Debrief with Savanna Young, Hughes said he believed Carroll’s recent messaging sounded familiar — and possibly aligned with points he has been pushing online for months.

‘I feel like he’s been watching my Instagram,’ Hughes said.

According to Hughes, the moment that caught his attention came when the Premier spoke about respecting taxpayers’ money, a theme the comedian says closely reflects the arguments he has repeatedly made in public.

‘He seems to be watching what I say because he’s repeating a lot of what I say,’ Hughes insisted.

According to Hughes, the government’s messaging signals a recognition that public funds belong to Victorians rather than politicians.

While Hughes welcomed Mr Carroll’s rhetoric, he questioned whether voters would be convinced that meaningful change is underway.

And in an extraordinary claim, Hughes suggested his outspoken criticism of the Victorian government may have played a role in the downfall of former Premier Jacinta Allan.

Allan, 52, quit as Premier in July after losing the support of the Labor caucus, despite maintaining she could still win the November state election.

Carroll, 51, has now taken over the state’s top job with Labor facing a difficult election campaign, as the party struggles in opinion polls ahead of the November vote.

‘I think I’ve made a big difference in Victoria,’ Hughes declared.

‘If I hadn’t been as vocal as I had, I reckon Jacinta Allan would still be Premier of Victoria. Seriously.’

The comedian acknowledged others may disagree with his assessment, but maintained that his public campaigning had an impact on the political landscape.

Hughes also pointed to comments made by the new Premier on his first day in the top job, particularly remarks about integrity and leadership.

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The former radio star argued those comments amounted to an implicit criticism of previous administrations, a point he seized upon during his lengthy political commentary.

‘He said “I’m not Dan Andrews, I’m not Jacinta Allan. So I’m not the last two premiers under the government, I lead with integrity. Integrity will not be optional”. He said that,’ Hughesy quoted Carroll.

‘So the guy who watched the last two premiers behind closed doors said that when he’s in charge, integrity is not going to be optional, which is saying integrity was optional under those two leaders. It’s a big thing to say.

Despite expressing some optimism about the new leadership’s messaging, Hughesy remained deeply sceptical about the governing party’s prospects ahead of the next state election.

He said Carroll faces an uphill battle convincing Victorians that the government has changed course.

‘He’s got two months to try to convince the public that the government should be trusted,’ Hughesy said.

The comedian also threw his support behind the Victorian Liberals, revealing he has gone ‘all chips in’ on the opposition.

He specifically praised Liberal leader Jess Wilson, describing her as ‘reasonable’ and ‘honest’ after attending a Liberal function with her in Geelong last month.

Hughesy also argued Victorians should consider giving the opposition a chance, while stressing he would remain willing to change his view if future policies failed to impress him.

‘Jess Wilson is a young woman. She’s in the mid 30s. Young mum. I’ve met her a few times. I’ve done a function with her down in Geelong,’ he added.

‘I think Victoria should give her a go and give the Libs a go this time.’

While political pundits may debate the true extent of his influence, Hughes himself appears convinced his voice is being heard in the corridors of power.

But has his self-proclaimed influence prompted him to run for politics?

His surprising answer, and the full explosive interview, can be heard in the latest episode of The Debrief with Savanna Young – now available on the Daily Mail’s YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts, with new episodes dropping weekly.