The number of interceptions of migrant boats over the Channel has gone down as lazy French officers stand and watch migrant boats being launched…. down from 47% 2 years ago, 45% last year and this year 38%.
Healey admitted that the scenes are shocking and that Britain has lost control of its borders. Sir Keir Starmer has signalled it is his duty to ensure no one is crossing the English Channel in small boats after more than a thousand migrants made the journey in a single day for the first time this year.
Some 1,194 migrants arrived in 18 boats on Saturday, according to Home Office data.
The Government has said that there is a new agreement for the French to change the rules to intervene in the water, although the French are deliberately dragging their feet on changing the law. “This will be part of, I hope, stopping the boats!” he said.
It was the first time daily crossings topped a thousand in 2025, and prompted Defence Secretary John Healey to claim Britain had “lost control” of its borders over the last five years.
As he made a major defence speech in Glasgow on Monday, the Prime Minister was asked if the Government was failing to keep the UK safe in the English Channel.
He told journalists: “In relation to border security, I want to be really clear: nobody should be making that journey across the Channel and it’s our duty to make sure that we ensure that they don’t.
“We are working very closely with our counterparts in France and elsewhere to take further action in northern France, and of course, we are giving enhanced powers to our own law enforcement through the Borders Bill, which is currently going through Parliament.”
Speaking about the previous Government’s Rwanda plan, Sir Keir insisted it “didn’t deter anybody”, after his decision to scrap it was highlighted. Immigration is is 42% higher than the same point last year (10,448) and 95% up from the same point in 2023.
Nigel Farage has declared that “our country is in peril” after more than 1,000 migrants crossed the English Channel in a record-breaking day for illegal arrivals. Saturday’s warm weather led to the highest total of people making the perilous journey on a single day so far this year, beating the previous record of 825 set earlier this month.
The shocking figure means 14,600 people have been smuggled across the water so far in 2025, a 30% rise on the same point last year. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has blamed favourable weather conditions for the increase, pointing to the higher number of “red days” – periods of calm weather when crossings are more viable. But reacting to the latest news on social media platform X, Reform UK leader Mr Farage said: “As I warned earlier, huge numbers of young males have crossed the Channel today … well over 1,000. Our country is in peril.”
Ministers believe the situation could improve in the coming months, with France changing its laws to allow police to stop small boats at sea using their own vessels.
There has been fury at France’s lack of action , with figures suggesting Paris has intercepted fewer than 40% of migrants attempting the crossing so far this year – despite a £480million funding agreement with the UK to help block departures and does so deliberately for purely domestic purposes.
Voters welcome the fact net migration has halved but still think it is too high, polling shows. The survey from the More in Common think tank also found that voters do not think Labour was responsible for the fall in net migration, despite Sir Keir Starmer claiming credit for it, only 13% believing that Labour contributed to any reduction (although only 17% believed that the Tories had contributed to any reduction).
While the majority of net migration is accounted for by legal migration, the Government is facing rising pressure on the issue of small boats illegally crossing the Channel when on Saturday, 1,194 people arrived in 18 small boats – the highest number of migrants recorded on a single day so far in 2025 and Defence Secretary John Healey claiming “There’s no overnight solution for this, the truth is that Britain lost control of its borders over the last five or six years …….We’ve now got an agreement and cooperation with the French to change their rules to allow the police to be able to disrupt these gangs and these smugglers when they’re in the water not just on the shore” which according to Reform is rubbish.
Reform announced at the Reform UK Conference on October 7 and 8, 2023 that, if elected into Government, all migrants entering the UK illegally after that date would be “Detained & Deport” under the only DEI (Deport Every Illegal) process that Reform supports and that they would “never get indefinite leave to remain, never get citizenship, and would have all entitlement to state benefit or state housing or housing benefit removed”.