UK Border Force officials last week declared a “red” alert as the number of Channel crossings increased again. Time has shown this was not without reason, with reports suggesting up to 800 migrants arrived in England via the Channel on Monday this week alone. This is a record for 2023—up from the previous figure of 755 set less than a fortnight before.
Better weather conditions are expected to result in increased numbers for the rest of the week. The most migrants to have ever crossed the Channel in one day was 1,295, one year ago this week. And, officially, more than a total of 100,000 individuals have made the dangerous journey on small boats since records began in 2018.
When this milestone was hit earlier this month, Simon Jones of the BBC described it as “unwelcome … for a government which has vowed to stop the boats.” But, he added, “the boats keep coming.”
The latest edition of The Mail on Sunday featured the incredible statement that it could “reveal” Britain’s “‘soft touch’” approach to assessing asylum claims—as if voters were not already well aware of this. For, as simple logic would highlight, why else are the numbers of illegal crossings so high, and why else are migration officials continuously outsmarted?
Even though there was a recorded fall in the number of crossings in the first half of 2023 compared to the same period the year before, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has suggested that his government will not succeed in stopping the small boats before the next general election.
The Tory leader told journalists on Monday morning, August 21st:
I want it to be done as soon as possible but I also want to be honest with people that it is a complex problem, there is not one simple solution and that it can’t be solved overnight and I wouldn’t be being straight with people if I said that was possible.
Mr. Sunak reiterated that stopping illegal Channel crossings was one of his “five key priorities,” but omitted the fact that—as stated on the government’s own website—this was introduced as a “priority” for 2023. The issue, the prime minister now appears certain, will drag on far beyond this point.
Desperate as the prime minister is to create the impression he is getting to grips with illegal Channel crossings, barely a day goes by without the reality of the situation rearing its inconvenient head, and highlighting a total lack of control.
Officials earlier this year suggested that crossings are expected to continue for at least another five years. Migration Watch UK Chairman Alp Mehmet told The European Conservative in response to this admission that the failure to get to grips with small boats was a result of government “delusion.”
And even if illegal crossings were dealt with by the Tory government, which is palpably more interested in rhetoric than action, ministers would still be left with other illegal migration routes that have opened up on the sitting government’s watch.
Frustrated by Mr. Sunak’s latest admission, human rights lawyer Shoaib M. Khan demanded in a post on Twitter: “If the issue is so complex and you are so clueless and helpless, why did you promise it?”
