The number of migrants arriving in the UK after crossing the English Channel has reached a new record for the first four months of the year.
Some 656 people arrived in 11 small boats on Saturday, taking the total number of people crossing in 2025 so far to 8,064, according to provisional Home Office figures.
Less than half-way through April, this is already higher than the 7,567 people who crossed the Channel over the first four months of last year – a record high at the time.
A Home Office spokesperson said the government has a “serious credible plan to finally restore order to our asylum system”, and it will “stop at nothing” to dismantle the business models of people-smuggling gangs.
There were 5,946 arrivals in the first in the first four months of 2023, and then 6,691 in the same period in 2022.
The 656 people who entered the UK on Saturday is the highest number of crossings recorded in a single day this year.
However, the highest number of daily crossings recorded was on 3 September 2022, when 1,305 people were documented to have crossed into the UK via small boats.
In a statement, the French Coastguard said it had rescued 50 people from various boats at sea on Saturday, after some migrants asked for help.
Twenty-eight passengers were taken to Calais, in northern France, from one boat that got into difficulty, and 19 people were rescued on another boat while the rest onboard continued their journey.
Three people from another boat were taken to the quayside in Boulogne-sur-Mer, while others on board refused assistance and continued on their way, it added.
Earlier this year the government announced a series of measures to tackle people smuggling, including new criminal offence of endangering the lives of others at sea with a jail term of up to five years, expected to come into effect this year.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security.”
They said the government’s plan includes “tougher enforcement powers, ramping up returns to their highest levels for more than half a decade and a major crackdown on illegal working to end the false promise of jobs used by gangs to sell spaces on boats”.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp described the figures as a “national disgrace.”
“This news underlines what we all knew – Keir Starmer has lost control of our borders,” he said, adding: “The gangs are laughing, the boats keep coming, and taxpayers are left to foot the bill”.
In response, a Labour spokesperson said 8,325 people crossed the Channel in a 10-week period from July to September 2021, during Philp’s time as immigration minister, “and we didn’t hear him calling those figures a national disgrace”.
