In the aftermath of the sinking of another boat full of refugees and asylum seekers in the Mediterranean – with significant loss of life – disturbing rumours that the sinking might have been deliberate have emerged. “There have been some alarming reports of the periscope of a submarine being seen in the vicinity of the refugee boat shortly before it sank, followed by the wake of what might have been a torpedo reportedly seen heading toward the boat,” claims Derek Quimply of the New Democrat magazine. “While nobody can confirm an explosion, the suddenness and rapidity of the sinking is highly suspicious – there simply was no reason for it have happened, even though the boat was overloaded, it wasn’t in any trouble immediately before the sinking.” According to Quimply, rumours are rife that a secret coalition of prominent right-wing anti-immigration politicians and activists are privately financing a submarine to target such boats in an insane attempt to stop migrants from reaching Western Europe. “On the surface, it sounds crazy, but we have to remember that these bastards do, sort of, have form for this, chartering boats to try and disrupt operations to rescue refugees, for instance, or calling for every small boat in North Africa to be sunk or destroyed on the beaches in order to stop them from being used by refugees and asylum seekers. Even the British government keeps shouting ‘Stop the Boats!’,” he points out. “So it isn’t that much of a stretch to imagine that a group of the wealthy reactionary crackpots might have set up their own racist version of Captain Nemo, roaming the world’s oceans sinking boats and ships carrying migrants.”
Sceptics, however, have questioned how such a group could acquire a military submarine, let alone secretly operate one. “There’s a lot of speculation that they might have salvaged a sunken World War Two U-Boat,” says Quimply. “You know, like in that sixties film, where Frank Sinatra and his buddies salvaged a sunken U-Boat and used it to hold up the Queen Mary. Although, of course, by now very few sunken U-Boats would be in any fit condition to be used, even if they could be raised from the ocean bed.” A theory currently gaining traction is that the submarine being used was one that had been secretly bought from the Italian navy by former Italian Prime Minister the late Silvio Berlusconi. “Apparently, he used it to hold his ‘Bunga Bunga’ parties in secret – it would be loaded up with booze, drugs and prostitutes before Berlusconi and all his guests came aboard, then dive to the bottom of the Bay of Naples, so that they could orgy in peace, without fear of the paparazzi,” explains the journalist. “Unfortunately, during one particularly raucous party, someone tried to fire themselves and a prostitute out of one of the torpedo tubes as they had sex, but it went wrong and the sub started taking on water, so they had to do an emergency evacuation – it played havoc with Berlusconi’s hair transplant, being in salt water for over an hour before they were rescued by the Italian coast guard.” The submarine remained on the sea bed, fully functional but water logged, until the shady group of right-wingers – many allies of Berlusconi – refloated it in order to use it in their anti-immigration campaign.
While many remain sceptical of the anti-immigration submarine claims, there have also been reports of a similar vessel having been seen operating in the English Channel, off of the Kent coast. “I know what I saw – a couple of those dinghys full of immigrants suddenly foundered as they were getting near shore, for no reason I could see as the sea was calm, then the conning tower of a submarine appeared and this guy climbed out of the hatch and looked at the floundering migrants through binoculars,” says Gordon Nattles, who claims to have seen the vessel off of Ramsgate, while taking his dog on a coastal walk. “Then, as I watched, the guy ducked back inside and the conning tower vanished as the vessel submerged. The thing is, I definitely recognised that bloke – it was Nigel Farage.” So, is the former UKIP leader currently captaining a submarine targeting the small boats crossing the channel in order to stem the so called ‘invasion’ of the UK by illegal immigrants?
We put this question to Farage when we caught up with him on one of his regular visits to Kent beaches to observe the problem first hand. “Do you think I’d be doing this if I had access to a bloody submarine?” he responded to The Sleaze’s questions, as he waded knee deep in the Channel, hurling pebbles from the beach at incoming rubber boats, shouting ‘Get back you foreign bastards’ at their occupants. “It should be government sending Royal Navy submarines to deter these devils, rather than having the RNLI rescue them and bring them ashore! But as ever, concerned patriotic citizens like me are left to do the job ourselves!” At this point, the interview was cut short as Farage had to hurriedly leave the water in order to chase two small children who had stolen his shoes, and socks, which he’d left on the beach.
Others have cast doubts upon Nattles’ claims that Farage was running U-Boat operations in the Channel. “To be honest, I’d think that he and his merry men would probably be targeting the RNLI lifeboats trying to rescue stricken asylum seekers rather than individual rubber rafts,” opines Labour MP Eric Acorne. “They’d probably wait until they’d picked up the occupants of several small boats and were heading home before torpedoing them, so as to ensure maximum casualties – if they were sinking these boats, which obviously they aren’t.” Indeed, Acorne has cast doubts upon the abilities of Farage or any other British anti-immigration activists to actually operate a submarine, even if they had access to one. “Let’s face it, if buffoons like that were to captain a sub under such circumstances, it would probably run aground off Felixstowe or end up beached at Dover,” he muses. “Or, if we were really lucky, they might end up firing themselves out of the torpedo tubes and drown.”
