AN ex-Reform MP sparked a coastguard alert after mistaking a charity rowing crew for “illegal migrants.”

Rupert Lowe, who now sits as an Independent in Great Yarmouth, posted a pixelated photo on X on Thursday evening, showing a boat near some wind turbines off the Norfolk coast.

He wrote: “Dinghies coming into Great Yarmouth, RIGHT NOW.

“Authorities alerted, and I am urgently chasing. If these are illegal migrants, I will be using every tool at my disposal to ensure these individuals are deported.

“Enough is enough. Britain needs mass deportations. NOW.”

HM Coastguard contacted the crew to confirm their identities.

It was revealed the boat was carrying a crew of charity rowers, ROW4MND, who are attempting to row from Land’s End to John O’Groats to raise money for motor neurone disease.

After assuring the Coastguard that their boat was not carrying migrants, the crew carried on. 

But several hours later the Coastguard contacted them again, explaining that the police had requested a lifeboat be dispatched to identify who they were.

One crew member, Mike Bates, said it was “almost like a vigilante-style, people following us down the beach.

“They hadn’t twigged that we were parallel to the shore for hours and not trying to land.”

After the truth was revealed, Mr Lowe agreed to donate £1,000 to the crew but said that he had “no apologies over being vigilant for my constituents.”

Mr Lowe, who was previously touted as a potential Reform leader by Elon Musk, was suspended from the party in March following allegations that he threatened violence towards party chairman Zia Yusuf. 

A new YouGov poll has found that the public is dramatically overestimating the number of migrants who came to Britain “illegally.”

The survey found that almost half of Britons (47 per cent) think there are more migrants staying in Britain illegally than legally.

Last year, 37,000 people arrived by small boat, while total net migration was 948,000.

Some 45 per cent said they would support “admitting no more new migrants, and requiring large numbers of migrants who came to the UK in recent years to leave,”  rising to 86 per cent among Reform UK voters.