20,000 small-boat migrants this year and counting: Labour's abject failure to protect our borders laid bare
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Labour's abject failure to protect our borders was laid bare today as it emerged a record 20,000 small-boat migrants had reached Britain in the first half of this year.
Nearly 900 arrived in Dover from France on Monday, the latest official figures revealed.
On top of a confirmed 19,982 arrivals since the start of the year, there were at least 300 more today, and the Mail witnessed scores awaiting a traffickers' 'taxi boat' off the French coast.
This means the year's tally has already hit 20,000 – a milestone not reached until mid-August in previous years. Small-boat arrivals are up by 48 per cent on the same period in 2024.
The news comes almost exactly a year after Labour took power and scrapped the Conservatives' Rwanda asylum deal, which was designed to deter migrants from mounting perilous Channel crossings.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: 'One year into Labour's Government and the boats haven't stopped – they've multiplied. Labour tore up our deterrent and replaced it with fantasy.
'This is the worst year on record, and it's become a free-for-all.
'We need a removals deterrent so every single illegal immigrant who arrives is removed to a location outside Europe. The crossings will then rapidly stop.
'People are furious – and rightly so. Under new leadership, only the Conservatives have a credible plan to stop the crossings, restore control, and end the chaos.'
Tories predicted that this year's annual total could hit a record-breaking 50,000.
Since 2018, more than 170,000 migrants have reached Britain by small boat – but only about 4 per cent have been removed.
Labour pledged to 'smash the gangs' by placing a new emphasis on law-enforcement tactics. But arrivals are soaring and the number of asylum seekers housed in hotels at the taxpayers' expense has gone up since the election, despite a Labour pledge to end their use.
David Wood, the Home Office's former director general of immigration enforcement, told the BBC's Today programme today: 'It won't work, and it never was going to work.'
He added that Labour's efforts to gather intelligence on traffickers relied on European police having the resources and determination to make arrests.
'The evidence the strategy doesn't work is it's gone up 40-odd per cent in the last year,' Mr Wood said.
It came after the chief inspector of borders and immigration, David Bolt, revealed last week that he wrote to ministers last summer to say he 'wasn't convinced' that their policy would succeed.
Even the pro-migrant Refugee Council said Labour's approach was not working.
Its chief executive, Enver Solomon, said: 'The fact remains that these measures alone are so far not achieving the intended outcome, with deadly crossings rising.'
In 2022 – the year in which there was a record annual total of 45,700 arrivals – the 20,000 point was not passed until August 14. In the following two years it took place at the end of August.
Today, the Mail observed some 100 migrants lined up on the bank of a canal at Gravelines, between Calais and Dunkirk.
They watched as other migrants tried to fix an outboard engine on a broken-down 'taxi boat'. Two dozen Police Nationale CRS riot squad officers arrived at the scene only after the boat was in the water.
Migrants would have attempted to cross to Britain aboard the dinghy, had it not malfunctioned.
President Emmanuel Macron's government has finally agreed to change its rules to let gendarmes and other officials intercept dinghies that are already in the water.
But one British expert has warned that the new powers – due to come into force this month – will have a negligible impact on illegal migration.
Lucy Moreton, of the ISU trade union, which represents Border Force staff, said migrants may simply switch to other modes of transport such as yachts and concealing themselves in HGVs.
French police unions also are understood to have concerns that their members may be required to enter the water wearing body armour that can weigh up to 6lb, putting them at risk of drowning.
Additionally, French officers are said to have raised fears about being unable to carry firearms if they have to go into the sea, because salt water would damage them.
But French police colonel Olivier Alary told the BBC last month that they 'will be able to do more' once the new rules come into force.
Illegal migration will be one of the key topics addressed by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Mr Macron during the French leader's state visit to the UK next week.
