Small Boat Crossings Surge Despite Starmer’s Pledge to Smash Gangs
Small boat crossings of illegal migrants surged last year despite Sir Keir Starmer’s election pledge to smash the people-smuggling gangs. The Telegraph has the story.
A total of 41,472 migrants arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel in 2025 – up from 36,816 in the previous year and 41% higher than 2023’s total of 29,437.
It meant last year was the second highest annual total for small boat crossings on record, 9% below the all-time high of 45,774 in 2022. Some 65,000 migrants have reached Britain across the Channel since Labour came to power in summer 2024.
The average number of people per boat rose again in 2025, continuing a trend that began in 2018. There was an average of 62 arrivals per boat last year, up from 53 in 2024 and 49 in 2023.
For much of last year, the number of arrivals was running at the highest level since data was first published in 2018. However, it fell short of setting a new record because of bad weather in the last two months of the year, including a 28-day period when no migrants arrived.
The surge in crossings comes despite Sir Keir’s pledge in the run up to the general election to “smash the gangs”, with new legislation giving law enforcement agencies counter-terrorism style powers to crackdown on people smugglers.
Labour has also sought new agreements to prevent migrants from crossing the Channel in the first place, including a pledge from France to intervene at sea for the first time to stop the boats before they leave French waters.
The strategy, agreed with France at the same time as the ‘one in, one out’ deal to return Channel migrants to France, has yet to be implemented because of police union concerns at the risk to life from stopping small boats at sea.
The ‘one in, one out’ agreement has also so far remained a trial, with 193 migrants sent back to France and 195 legitimate asylum seekers entering the UK since the scheme was launched in the summer.
Worth reading in full.
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And again. What part are we playing in their game? That’s the most important question.
Off-T
This looks big.
“THEY ARE KILLING US!” 🔥 FARMERS STORM BRUSSELS IN A FIERY SHOWDOWN WITH THE EU MACHINE!
This is the sound of desperation echoing through Europe’s capital. Thousands of farmers have risen up, turning Brussels into a battleground as they fight a trade deal they say will wipe them out forever. Christmas decorations burn. Sirens scream. Tractors line the streets in an act of defiance unseen in years.
The deal threatens to unleash cheap beef and grain onto the European market, undercutting local farmers already pushed to the brink. While politicians debate and posture, families fear losing everything. Leaders scramble to delay the vote, calling it a pause. Protesters call it a lie.
They warn the real danger is still coming, and this delay may only be the calm before the final blow. Europe’s farming crisis has exploded into the open and the images are impossible to ignore.
Hide — uploads.disquscdn.com
Hat tip L1ckyalips at FSB.
it isn’t as Off-T as you think. ——-All of these issues are related in the sense that they all seek to undermine National Identities, culture and History and put technocrats and their ideologies above Nation States, and tragically our feeble Political Class align and comply.
“…195 legitimate asylum seekers…”
How could someone coming from France be a legitimate asylum seeker? Is this someone who fears murder by the French authorities? It would also have to be someone who wasn’t lying – not many of those I suspect.
My thoughts exactly
Immigration is a globalist RACKET.—–Even in my small town in the East of Scotland I see new “migrants” arrive on a daily basis. Just yesterday 3 more Africans were trudging down the High Street with their suitcases towards their free accommodation as I popped into Specsavers. The previous week 2 were in the shop being fitted for their free glasses.
The country is LOST. We are not a Nation anymore, we are just a REGION.
Has any U.K. government since WW2 reduced immigration?
See the photo of the illegal aliens crossing the English Channel and landing in Britain.
But wait, where are their dinghies landing on our shores?
That photo, and others like it, show that illegal aliens are NOT “making the perilous journey”, “risking their lives”, etc. as the mainstream media constantly insist.
Not one illegal alien dinghy has crossed the English Channel unaided to land on English shores. Not one.
They are being taken off their dinghies and BROUGHT into our ports by British coastguard vessels and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, who journey far out into the English Channel to do so, in treasonous violation of the democratic will of the British People. Their vessels should be impounded for Illegal Human Trafficking, and the captains & crews arrested for treason.
Yes. Compare and contrast the treatment of the skippers of these boats with the truck drivers who belatedly discover stowaways on their vehicles, who receive a £10k per person civil penalty.
Good point— I hadn’t thought of that!
Yeah, but who really believed that Starmer really wanted to smash the gangs?
It was nothing more than a slogan.
It was pure bullshit. Its only purpose was to deceive and make people think that the government actually had the intention of reducing illegal migration.
He certainly was – and remains – clueless as to how to smash the gangs. Still, the mantra makes for some excellent comedy clips as GB News links together assorted leftwing slime spouting it.
Given that our government runs the gangs and pays them for their efforts they are hardly likely to “smash” them.
I sometimes wonder when hypocrisy became a central part of the Far Left as when we had the month of stormy weather all manner of lefties lined up to take credit for what the weather had achieved. And then as soon as the wind died down the illegal immigrants were on their way in ever greater numbers.
It’s deliberate. He hasn’t “smashed the gangs” because the Establishment WANTS these criminal migrants here.
Government by slogans and press releases is what we have, and the result is FAILURE at every level. WE are allowing International Courts and Treaties to run every show and our ideologically aligned feeble Political Class can only squirm and hand wring as they stand at podiums promising “CHANGE” and “STOP THE BOATS” , “SMASH THE GANGS”—————–We are governed by WIMPS