A record number of people have crossed the Channel in small boats in the first six months of this year, new figures show – despite Sir Keir Starmer’s pledge to “smash the gangs”.
Just days before the prime minister marks one year in office, new data from the Home Office shows a total of 19,982 people have arrived in the UK since the start of 2025 – the highest total for this point in the year since data was first collected on migrant crossings in 2018.
The prime minister has been struggling to bring down both the number of boat crossings and the amount of money spent on housing asylum seekers in hotels across the UK. But he has also faced criticism from left-wing Labour MPs and refugee charities, accusing Sir Keir of attempting to copy Reform UK’s inflammatory rhetoric.
It comes amid growing concern over the direction of the Labour government, dire poll ratings and a devastating performance at the local elections earlier this year.
On Monday, some 879 people arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel, provisional Home Office data showed – the third highest number of arrivals on a single day so far this year.
The total for 2025 so far is 48 per cent higher than the figure for the first six months of 2024, which was 13,489, and 75 per cent higher than the equivalent figure for 2023, which was 11,433.
There were 13 boats that arrived on Monday, which suggests an average of around 68 people per boat.
The highest number of arrivals on a single day so far in 2025 is 1,195 on May 31.
The record for the highest number of arrivals on one day is 1,305, which took place on September 3 2022.
The figures have added to pressure for the government to getting tougher on the problem of people smuggling and the small boats.
Labour Dover MP Mike Tapp, whose constituency is on the front line of the small boats crisis, warned that while counter terrorism measures and hitting people smuggling gangs were working, the government needed to go further.
He told The Independent: “The fact is we have to go further in terms of returns agreements, potentially offshore processing, potentially offshore removals.
“For those that can’t be removed, we need to slim down that interpretation of the ECHR, particularly article 8 (respect for private and family life and home).”
He added: “We’ll never win the argument with the public by saying, ‘Oh, well, the law says we can’t do it.’ We are legislators. If there are laws that are not serving what is right, then we must legislate to change them as much as we possibly can.”
But MPs on the left of the party have expressed concern that the prime minister is mimicking the rhetoric of Reform UK in his mission to bring down migration.
Giving a speech in May, which he has since said he regrets, Sir Keir Starmer said the UK risks becoming an “island of strangers” – remarks which were immediately compared to a 1968 speech from Enoch Powell which whipped up a frenzy of anti-immigration hatred across the UK.
Senior Labour backbencher Clive Lewis told The Independent the PM’s language “doesn’t just alienate communities, it drives people away from our country altogether”.
Meanwhile, MP Nadia Whittome said the language was “shameful and dangerous”, and accused the PM of “mimicking the scaremongering of the far right”.
The government also faced criticism after publishing videos of immigration raids targeting illegal workers earlier this year, with the Refugee Council saying the government was using performative stunts to try to promote division.
