More than 133 migrants a day have crossed the English Channel on small boats since Sir Keir Starmer entered Downing Street, new figures show.
Yesterday, 142 people on two boats were brought to Dover for processing after being intercepted midway across the Channel bringing the total under Sir Keir’s premiership to 13,179.
The migrants were the first to travel from France for five days following some bad weather.
Last weekend, 1,368 crossed on 24 boats.
Since January 1, 2018, a total of 141,087 people have successfully crossed the English Channel on board 4,098 small boats.
A Home Office spokesperson said: ‘We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security.
‘As we have seen with so many recent devastating tragedies in the Channel, the people-smuggling gangs do not care if the vulnerable people they exploit live or die, as long as they pay. We will stop at nothing to dismantle their business models and bring them to justice.
‘We are making progress, bolstering our personnel numbers in the UK and abroad. Our new Border Security Command will strengthen our global partnerships and enhance our efforts to investigate, arrest, and prosecute these evil criminals.’
On Saturday, October 6, some 973 people crossed the Channel on 17 boats. Four people, including a two-year-old boy died that day.
According to Home Office figures released this lunchtime, some 26,765 migrants have made the crossing during 2024. Those figures do not include those people who crossed today.
UK Border Force vessel Hurricane brought a group of migrants safely ashore to Dover earlier today for processing
On Friday, 142 people arrived on two small boats according to new data released by the Home Office. During 2024, 504 small boats have successfully made the crossing
This day last year, 25,931 people had made the crossing, compared with 35,688 in 2022.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has pledged £75m in funding to the National Crime Agency to disrupt the migrant smuggling gangs.
Tory leader hopeful Robert Jenrick has pledged to ‘kick out’ all illegal immigrants in the UK as part of his campaign to replace Rishi Sunak.
He said he quit the Cabinet in December 2023 because the then Government’s Rwanda deportation plan were not tough enough.
He said if he leads the Tories back to power, he would cap legal migration to the ‘tens of thousands’ by compelling British businesses to hire British workers – even to fill low-skill manual roles.
He said: ‘I am particularly frustrated that after we took back control of the levers of legal migration, upon leaving the European Union and ended freedom of movement, the ministers at the time made decisions which created a migration system even more liberal and open than the one we had.’
He has also pledged to reduce foreign aid spending to boost spending on defence.
The Government has recently installed Martin Hewitt as the border security commander as part of Sir Keir Starmer’s pledge to ‘smash the gangs’ involved in people trafficking.
Sir Keir scrapped the previous government’s plan to remove migrants to Rwanda for processing.
The PM wants to work with fellow European leaders to target the gangs across the continent, though this approach has been criticised by both the Tory Party and Reform.
Sir Keir believes that fast-tracking asylum claims will work as a deterrent, although critics believe this could encourage greater numbers to cross the Channel.
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