Blow for PM as small boat crossings surge in 2025

Arrivals at second highest on record despite crackdown

- KATE DEVLIN

Sir Keir Starmer’s flagship plans to stop small boats crossing the English Channel have suffered a blow as 41,472 migrants arrived in 2025 - the second-highest annual figure on record.

The Labour prime minister was elected on a pledge to “smash the gangs” and slash the number of people making the perilous journey from France. But last year’s figure was 13 per cent higher than the total of 36,816 in 2024, when the Conservatives were in charge for the first half of the year, and 41 per cent higher than 2023’s total of 29,437.

The overall number in 2025 was 9 per cent below the all-time high of 45,774 in 2022, meaning that nearly 65,000 migrants have arrived on small boats since Labour came to power.

The development comes after a series of setbacks for the government’s plans to tackle the crisis. In June, the head of the UK’s borders watchdog, David Bolt, questioned the government’s ability to achieve its promise to “smash the gangs” behind the soaring crossings - and predicted that Rachel Reeves would also fail to meet her flagship pledge to end the use of asylum hotels by 2029.

And in October, it emerged that a migrant who was deported under a new “one in, one out” deal with France had returned to the UK in a small boat just weeks later.