The son of the Spectator owner, Paul Marshall, has said Britain should construct a mine-laden “floating wall” to stop small boat crossings on the Channel.

Winston Marshall, a former member of the band Mumford & Sons who is establishing himself as a rightwing online influencer, said that while the idea “might sound ridiculous”, it should be explored because previous attempts to stop the crossings had failed.

Marshall, who launched his own YouTube show earlier this year vowing to cover topics “the corporate media won’t touch”, raised the idea in a Fox News discussion about a new £660m deal between the UK and France to tackle crossings, which he said had made him “pretty angry”.

“This is an outlandish idea, but I think it’s actually feasible,” he said. “We’ve got to build a giant wall across the channel. This isn’t being talked about much.

“I think if you consider that we spent £1bn now for six years trying to deter small boat crossings … We could build a floating wall, that’s mined, across the channel.

“Now, that might sound ridiculous and it might even look ridiculous, but if it stops channel boat crossings …”

The Dover Strait, the narrowest part of the channel, is the busiest shipping lane in the world.

Marshall suggested there should be “sections maybe that are mined [and] sections that are open to allow a proper operation”.

Ministers from the previous Conservative government trialled a ‘blockade’ tactic. However, that envisaged crossings being “physically prevented” by rigid hull inflatable boats.

Marshall’s father, Paul, is an increasingly influential hedge fund founder and media mogul who owns the Spectator magazine and co-owns GB News.

Marshall’s appearance on Fox News is the latest sign of a growing transatlantic network of rightwing media and commentators, who often concentrate on the same talking points.

It follows the launch of GB News’s US show, which regularly features figures close to Donald Trump, as well as Liz Truss’s YouTube show, which has links to rightwing US platforms. Elon Musk has also targeted the UK in his posts on X.

During his Fox News appearance, Marshall made a series of claims about the migrants making the crossings, describing them as “military aged men”.

He claimed: “They are not refugees. They are not asylum seekers. They are economic migrants. And they are not fleeing a war-torn country. There are lots of reasons to flee France, don’t get me wrong, but war isn’t one of them.”

He claimed the Royal Navy only had four assets “that are seaworthy”, other than its nuclear submarines. He also suggested the UK was “a tinderbox”.

“Actually, all of these things are piling up now and very fragile,” he said. “The smallest little thing and I fear that the country will explode.”