More migrant arrivals as annual total tops 36,000

Migrants have continued to cross the Channel in small boats, bringing the total for 2024 to more than 36,000.

After a lull in arrivals, the Home Office said 305 people made the crossing on Friday, with incidents on Christmas Day and Boxing Day bringing the total for the Christmas period so far to 1,163.

It means the number of people arriving by small boats since the Home Office started to release figures on 3 November 2018 stands at 150,053.

The Home Office said it will “stop at nothing” to dismantle the people smugglers’ operations.

The total for 2024 so far now stands at 36,023, already surpassing 2023’s total of 29,437.

The highest number of annual arrivals was in 2022, when the figure reached 45,730.

Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp blamed Labour’s decision to scrap the Tories’ Rwanda scheme, announced days after the general election in July.

The scheme aimed to deter small boats crossings in the Channel by sending some people who arrived in the UK illegally to the east African country.

Mr Philp said: “Another day, another awful statistic on small boats.

“Well over 20,000 have crossed under Labour, over 20% more than the same time last year.

“These rising numbers are the predictable outcome of Starmer scrapping many Conservative measures to tackle this issue, like scrapping the Rwanda deterrent before it even started.

“We know from the experience in Australia that a deterrent would have stopped the boats if it had been allowed to start as planned in late July.”

A Home Office spokesperson 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.