The last day of May witnessed the most channel crossings in a single day of this year so far - 1,194. Only three other days have seen more migrants cross the channel in one day - all of them in 2022 - but as the warmer weather arrives and the Channel waves calm, there is little doubt that, if the current pace of crossings persists, the 2022 record will be broken.
Take a look at the Migration Watch Channel Tracker (ours was the first) and compare this with previous years.
Why have we ended up in this lamentable situation? If you believe the government, it’s all down to clement weather or the French not keeping their side of the bargain (a bit of truth to this). Conditions have been so much better in the first half of 2025.
But why have migrants continued to amass in ever greater numbers on the other side of the Channel even during storms and bitterly cold weather earlier in the year? Might it have something to do with the government’s lamentable efforts and all but abdicating its responsibility to deter both migrants and traffickers looking to break into the country?
One of the first decisions this government made, after Keir Starmer’s Labour Party won on 4th July 2024, was to scrap the Rwanda Scheme. Designed to deter illegal entry into Britain - by the Channel, or otherwise - the Scheme was never.
A few volunteers took the £3,000 hand-out (Yvette Cooper derided this at the time, only now to be doing the same and flying out volunteers while claiming to be clamping down on illegal migrants).
The Starmer government has elevated gaslighting (we used to call it spin) into an art form..Attempting to justify revoking the Rwanda Scheme, Starmer claimed that it “cost a fortune, and only a handful of people went on a voluntary basis to Rwanda, and it didn't deter anybody”.
You might claim that, Sir Keir, but considering the number of Channel crossings in 2023 (29,090) was a third less than 2022’s (44,600), and is projected to rocket back up - perhaps to 50,000 - a deterrent is needed, and Rwanda was the best we had. You binned it before it got underway.
Were you worried that it might actually have worked?
Indeed, you and your Home Secretary abandoned everything else that might have had a deterrent effect, for example, the legal obligation placed on the Home Secretary by the Illegal Migration Act 2023 to remove anyone arriving in the UK illegally.
Think illegal migration is bad now? Labour's new Bill makes Britain's magnetic pull irresistible - Alp MehmetGetty Images
It isn’t just the abandoning of every policy and measure that might have served as a deterrent that makes me think the Channel crisis can only get worse, it is also the government’s lackadaisical approach to replacing what the Tories put in place with the scandalously weak and pointless Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill.
Writing in The Sun in March, I described this bill as likely to be as useful as a bikini on the North Pole in January. I truly believe that this Bill will encourage rather than discourage migrants and traffickers.
Instead, says Sir Keir, the government will work closely with France, claiming that “smashing the gangs” will be the primary focus of this. But France is part of the problem. They are simply not preventing the crossings at the source, allowing two-thirds of channel migrants to depart from our shores.
All of this despite our paying France eye-watering figures to stop the crossings – over £600m paid or pledged since 2015. I have always struggled to understand why we pay the French such eyewatering amounts to do what they are legally obliged to do.
If there were huge numbers embarking from unauthorised points along any part of our coast, we would put a stop to it in the blink of an eye. If they managed to make their way to France, you can bet every penny you have that France would send them back in a flash.
None of this is to excuse the Tories - it all got out of hand on their watch. But they did at least, albeit belatedly, see the light. I wouldn’t be surprised if they too hadn’t sought advice from the experts – police, intelligence agencies, FCDO, immigration enforcement - about going after the gangs and arresting them or putting them out of business.
The answer Tory ministers were given will likely have been along the lines of, 'we are trying to do just that, minister, but it’s those in countries like Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, a variety of African states, Albania, and a variety of others dotted around the globe'.
Had Sir Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper asked about smashing the gangs when talking to civil servants before the election, they would have had exactly the same response. That’s why, nearly a year since the election, there’s no evidence of gangs begging for mercy.
Nor will there be. Perhaps the rise in “immigration enforcement raids” is a sign of the government beginning to get down to business. If only. The government might boast that 6,500 “suspected illegal workers” have been arrested - but so what?
That’s a drop in the ocean given the 1.5 million to two million illegal immigrants we estimate to be here, as I wrote earlier this year.
The fact that there are such massive numbers living and working here illegally just adds to the strength of the magnet. Arresting 6,500, who will nearly all be promptly released to await decisions on what will happen to them.
If they are told to go, no doubt they will appeal or go to ground. Until we make clear that anyone arriving illegally will not be allowed to stay and will be removed, the flow across the Channel will continue unabated.
Rwanda may have been costly, but compared to the cost of tens of thousands coming illegally every year, it was a pittance.
Most Read
