More than 500 migrants have crossed Channel so far this Bank Holiday weekend

The Border Force vessel Defender picked up 47 people from that small boat and has taken them to the main migrant processing center at Dover Harbour.

This follows another 227 migrants that crossed illegally from France in four small boats on Saturday and 288 who arrived in five dinghies on Friday.

Those 562 arrivals take the total number of small boat migrants who have crossed the English Channel since the beginning of the year to 10,444.

That figure is 36 per cent ahead of the 7,326 migrants who arrived by this point last year.

The total is a complete reversal of the 36 per cent reduction in small boat migrant arrivals achieved during the course of 2023.

Maritime sources have told GB News we are unlikely to see many more migrants making the crossing during the rest of the bank holiday weekend, as winds in the Channel have strengthened to the point they make the voyage too hazardous.

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However, one source said: "We're rapidly heading towards the traditional flat calm months of the Summer, when sometimes we can see as many as a thousand people cross on a single day.

"Colleagues in Border Force have told me they're preparing for a bumper summer of arrivals. And we're already well ahead of last year's totals."

So far this year, the busiest single day of arrivals happened on May 1 when 711 managed to reach UK waters.

Rishi Sunak made stopping the boats one of his government's five key pledges.

During the week, he indicated a key plank of that policy would not come to fruition before the day of the general election.

The Prime Minister said that all the preparatory work had been done and should the Conservatives be re-elected, the first asylum seeker flights to Rwanda would take off in July.

Labour immediately seized on those remarks and said it demonstrated the PM never believed in the Rwanda plan in the first place.

Reacting to the latest arrivals, a Home Office spokesperson said: "We continue to work closely with our French partners to prevent crossings and save lives."