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Horatio Clare and Nicola Kelly talk to Ben Rawlence

The Small Boats

Hay Festival 2025, 

Travel writer Horatio Clare and investigative journalist Nicola Kelly speak about Britain’s intentionally hostile immigration system and the many people working to counteract it, with author and environmental campaigner Ben Rawlence. This event will leave you with new perspectives on one of the most urgent issues of our time.

In Clare’s We Came by Sea, he tells of the volunteers who help thousands of refugees in Calais, of the lifeboat crews rescuing those at sea and “an unrecognised, uncelebrated, all but unknown Britain” which is giving its all to help the vulnerable and desperate.

Kelly, formerly a Home Office insider, gives a nuanced insight into the small boats crisis in Anywhere But Here, from the under-resourced coastguards who have to oversee search and rescue operations to the decision-makers hired from McDonald’s and Aldi to conduct ‘life and death’ asylum interviews.