Last night, Nigel Farage defended calling the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) a “taxi service for illegal trafficking gangs”, during a passionate monologue on GBNews. Farage is amongst a number of people to criticise the RNLI for helping Border Force pick up migrants in the English Channel amid surging numbers of asylum seekers on lifeboats crossing the channel…

Following Farage’s tweet, the RNLI tweeted “we’re proud of the lifesaving work our volunteers do in the Channel – we make no apology for it”, accompanied with a harrowing video of a real migrant rescue in action.

We're proud of the lifesaving work our volunteers do in the Channel – we make no apology for it. Those we rescue are vulnerable people in danger & distress. Each of them is someone’s father, mother, son or daughter - every life is precious. This is why we launch: pic.twitter.com/lORd9NRpdP

— RNLI (@RNLI) July 28, 2021

Last night Farage responded to this video by claiming that the RNLI have clearly

“… employed a PR company, and what PR companies try to do is find some victims or find a victim and find somebody who is the baddie (…) The victims are people working on the lifeboats and we’re told they’re having abuse shouted at them by members of the public.”

 “I feel sorry for them and their predicament. But the baddie of course is me (…) for daring to say that the lifeboats are being used for a different purpose and have become an arm of the border force.”

Farage also claimed last night that:

“People who give money to the RNLI are asking themselves, do we really want to give money for this.”

The RNLI has experienced a surge in online donations in spite of, or perhaps because of, the criticisms…