The number of people reaching Britain by crossing the English Channel in small boats has reached almost 34,000, new figures have revealed.
The latest update comes today after a further 289 people were picked up in the Straits of Dover, according to official Home Office statistics.
People smugglers took advantage of an improvement in weather conditions to launch more journeys – before six dinghies were intercepted mid-Channel by British Border Force vessels and brought into the Port of Dover in Kent.
Groups, mostly made up of men, could be seen walking off the catamarans in orange life jackets and with red blankets on the gangway heading towards the immigration processing centre at the former Jetfoil terminal in the Western Docks.
The newest arrivals take the number to have come so far this year to 33,973 in 731 boats – including 20,399 who have now made the crossing since Labour came into power in July.
Today’s crossings come after 122 people travelled over the Channel in two boats on Sunday.
Severe weather has hampered crossings in the last few weeks, with more stormy conditions forecast for the next few days. Before Sunday there had been no crossings for two weeks.
Yet today several boats got into difficulty while trying to set off from the French coast, with local authorities there launching rescue operations.
A group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover, Kent, from a Border Force vessel following a small boat incident in the Channel on Wednesday
The number of people reaching Britain by crossing the English Channel in small boats has reached almost 34,000, new figures have shown
Life jackets, buoys and a deflated inflatable boat are seen after a failed attempt by migrants to cross the English Channel to reach Britain, on the beach of Sangatte, near Calais
Some 85 people were brought back to the quay in Boulogne before being taken into the care of by the land rescue services and French border police.
The latest developments come after Labour Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer was criticised this week under fire for not including cutting migration among his newly announced targets.
Shock figures last week revealed the true scale of people arriving in the UK legally, with revised Office for National Statistics data showing that net migration hit a record 906,000 in the year to June 2023 under the previous Conservative admonistration.
Young children wearing woolly hats and coats were among migrants arriving in the UK today after crossing the English Channel.
Pictures show the small youngsters being carried as they reached Dover, Kent, with men and women also wrapped up in warm clothes to brave the colder weather conditions as they were brought ashore by a Border Force boat.
Before now, the latest arrivals of 122 people in two boats were recorded on Sunday, bringing the provisional total for the year to 33,684 that day.
The new Home Office figures also marked more than 20,000 people arriving since Sir Keir became PM in July, with the milestone coming on his 150th day in office.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has vowed to ‘restore order’ to the migration system following the data, and blamed the Conservatives for a ‘collapse in controls’.
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Firefighters help a migrant put on an emergency blanket after being rescued yesterday after an attempt to cross the English Channel to reach Britain, on the beach of Sangatte, near Calais
She told the House of Commons on Monday: ‘We have the chance now to turn that around, to fix the chaos, to bring net migration down, to tackle the criminal gangs and prevent dangerous boat crossings, to restore order, control and fair rules properly enforced, not through gimmicks but through hard graft and serious international partnerships.’
The latest crossings also come as more than 500 officers were involved in a series of police raids targeting people smugglers who bring migrants to the UK in small boats in Germany.
British authorities are understood to be supporting the action, but all the operational activity is taking place in Germany, and the investigation is being led by France.
The action is targeting gangs who take migrants from the Middle East and North Africa to France, before embarking on potentially deadly Channel crossings to the UK in flimsy inflatable boats.
No crossings have been recorded in the last two days, while Sunday’s arrivals were the first since November 16 after a 14-day hiatus in activity amid bad weather.
So far the total arrivals for the year are up by 16 per cent on this time last year’s 29,090, but down by 24 per cent on 2022’s 44,174, which was a record annual high.
A Cabinet minister admitted this week that cutting migration numbers – legal or illegal – would not be in the ‘measurable milestones’ to be unveiled by the PM in his new Plan for Change today.
Pat McFadden told Sky News on Sunday: ‘I don’t say that targets don’t work in any circumstances. But numerical targets on migration have not had a happy history in recent years.’
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He said that the Government would set out what it wants to achieve ‘in critical areas like education, health, crime, housing, energy and living standards’.
A Home Office spokesperson today said: ‘We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security.
‘The people-smuggling gangs do not care if the vulnerable people they exploit live or die, as long as they pay.
‘We will stop at nothing to dismantle their business models and bring them to justice.’
