This year, the number of people crossing the English Channel in small boats has reached record levels. Some 15,000 migrants arrived by this route in the first five months of 2025 alone.
The flow is increasing, not reducing. The system is failing, and public confidence is collapsing. If the government is serious about reducing the flow, of course, it has to acknowledge and do what it can to address the push factors – those factors that drive people to leave their place of origin.
The government is also right to go after the people smugglers who encourage, solicit, facilitate and exploit migration.
However, although making much of their efforts to “smash the gangs”, the government is being incredibly naïve in the way it’s going about it, which will cost money but have no meaningful impact.
Is the Channel crossings surge deliberate? It’s time our leaders stopped pretending - Henry BoltonGetty Images
These two areas, the push factors and the role of organised crime, are real; they must be tackled and tackled seriously. But we cannot continue to ignore the massive role of pull factors — those things that actively encourage illegal migration to the UK, that make the UK an attractive destination in the first place.
Britain remains one of the most attractive destinations for illegal migrants. Why? Because our system makes it easy to stay once you arrive.
Free accommodation, free healthcare, access to legal aid, education, and the ability to work illegally in a thriving black economy — these all act as incentives.
The UK accepts a higher proportion of asylum claims than many of our European neighbours, which further increases its appeal. In 2023, the UK granted asylum or protection to over 61 per cent of applicants, compared to 42 per cent in France and 38 per cent in Germany, according to Eurostat data.
It is simply not credible to suggest the government doesn’t understand this ‘pull’ dynamic. I’m quite certain ministers and officials are fully aware that these pull factors are a major driver behind the rising number of crossings.
Yet nothing has been done to address them.
The question is: Is this deliberate? Does the government quietly want this flow to continue? Or is it simply demonstrating a profound weakness — a failure of leadership, courage and resolve?
Either way, the result is the same: a broken system that is encouraging illegal migration to the UK, undermining our borders, and damaging public trust.
The British public needs clarity of purpose, not confusion. Action, not evasion and excuses. Leadership, not managed decline of the rule of law and our sovereignty.
A nation that fails to exercise sovereignty over its own borders is a nation that is surrendering its sovereignty. If we are to put an end to illegal crossings of the Channel, we must face reality.
That means tackling the pull factors. It’s time to stop pretending this is beyond our control. What we’re witnessing is not some sort of inevitable result of living in the modern world; it is a scandalous failure of leadership and of policy, and that can be changed.
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