The Home Office has announced that seven small boats carrying 349 people crossed the English Channel last Saturday. This brings the total number of people who have crossed the Channel in the first three months of 2024 to 4,993, according to government data. This follows three consecutive days without new arrivals. The Conservative government promised to “stop the boats,” but Shadow Immigration Minister Stephen Kinnock claimed that the pledge has been “left in tatters.”
The year-to-date total surpassed the previous record of arrivals between January and March on 23rd March, when 338 people were brought ashore at Dover. In January, five people drowned in French waters while attempting to cross the English Channel. According to Home Office figures, the total for the whole of 2023 was 29,437.
The government’s key strategy is to send small boat arrivals to Rwanda, but the legislation was not passed before Easter after peers inflicted several defeats on the flagship bill. The bill is to be presented again to the Commons by 15th April. Labour’s Kinnock stated that there had been “one unwanted record after another for the number of arrivals” in 2024. He added that “poor quality, overcrowded dinghies are putting to sea and getting into trouble early in their journeys, while the smuggling gangs responsible are left to count their profits.”
Illegal Immigration Minister Michael Tomlinson noted that it was clear that Labour had “no plan at all.” He claimed that Labour had voted 118 times against measures created by the Conservatives to secure borders, arguing that “the numbers of illegal migrants would only go up under Labour, who are determined to scrap a working deterrent in the Rwanda plan.” In contrast, he maintained that the government had decreased small boat arrivals by a third and returned 24,000 people last year.
The Home Office maintained that “the unacceptable number of people who continue to cross the Channel demonstrates why we must get flights to Rwanda off the ground as soon as possible.” The department continued to collaborate with French police, who faced growing violence and disruption on their beaches as they worked to prevent these “dangerous, illegal, and unnecessary journeys.
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