The number of small boat migrants reaching Britain since Labour seized power has soared by 29 per cent compared with the same period in 2023.
Between July 5 – the day after the general election – and the end of the year 23,242 migrants arrived across the Channel.
In the same period in 2023 the figure was 18,004, analysis of official Home Office figures showed.
The Mail reported yesterday how December witnessed a 200 per cent increase in small boat arrivals compared with the same month in 2023, following a massive surge over the Christmas period.
Last night, the Conservatives said the ‘sky-rocketing’ number of illegal arrivals showed the Government had ‘lost control of our borders’.
Chris Philp MP, the shadow home secretary, said: ‘These figures make clear Labour has totally failed on illegal immigration by small boat.’
Numbers have sky-rocketed since the general election. ‘Over three times more illegal immigrants crossed in December this year compared to last year – an insult to the British people.
‘Labour has lost control of our borders.’
The number of small boat migrants reaching Britain since Labour seized power has soared by 29 per cent compared with the same period in 2023
Between July 5 – the day after the general election – and the end of the year 23,242 migrants arrived across the Channel – pictured is the RNLI bringing a group of migrants into Dover
Last year was the deadliest on record since the Channel crisis began in 2018 with at least 69 deaths, most recently three men off the coast of Sangatte, near Calais, on Sunday.
One of Labour’s first acts in office was to scrap the Tories’ Rwanda asylum deal which was designed to deter illegal dinghy crossings and save lives.
Migrants would have been sent to the east African nation under the £715million scheme to claim asylum there rather than here.
Labour insists that bringing existing government agencies together under a new Border Security Command will see trafficking gangs dismantled, stemming the flow of migrants.
Mr Philp said: ‘The National Crime Agency warned that a removals deterrent was needed, and law enforcement alone would not be enough.’
This means Labour made a catastrophic mistake by cancelling the Rwanda removals to deterrent before it even started.’
The first Rwanda plane was due to take off on July 24, and had Labour allowed the scheme to start, crossings would by now have dropped a lot – as they did when Australia did the same thing.’
Chris Philp MP, the shadow home secretary, said: ‘These figures make clear Labour has totally failed on illegal immigration by small boat.’
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 December 29, 2024
An abandoned small boat on a French beach near Calais. Between July 5 – the day after the general election – and the end of the year 23,242 migrants arrived across the Channel
Labour’s claim to smash the gangs is nothing new. That was happening already, and Labour voted against measures to increase prison sentences for these very same gangs when they were in an opposition.’
As migrant numbers have surged, Labour has been forced to open additional migrant hotels to accommodate new arrivals at the UK taxpayers’ expense.
Last month, the Home Office’s top civil servant Sir Matthew Rycroft confirmed to MPs that 35,000 migrants were housed in hotels with spending running at £5.5million a day.
The number of hotels in use had fallen by 191 from its peak a year ago but is now on the rise as Channel arrivals soar again.
A Conservative spokesman said that in opposition, Labour voted against tougher measures to tackle illegal immigration 134 times, and voted 126 times to delay or weaken Tory measures to stop the boats.
A Home Office source said: ‘The Tory government failed to take our border security seriously.
‘They let criminal gangs take hold all along our borders and, on their watch, small boat crossings grew from just a few hundred in 2018 to tens of thousands by the time they left office.’
They spent an eye-watering £700million to send just four volunteers to Rwanda – the failed scheme was more of a distraction than a deterrent.’
Labour is fixing our border security, with a new Border Security Command backed up by an additional £150million and 100 new specialist investigators to go after the evil smuggling gangs making millions out of small boat crossings.’
