Migrant crossings surge on warmest day of year
Higher temperatures and calm seas offer window of opportunity to make journey over the Channel
Around 550 migrants crossed the Channel on Wednesday as they took advantage of the warmest day of the year.
Ten small boats set off from France carrying the migrants in the first crossings in a fortnight after bad weather had paused attempts to reach the UK.
It means the total crossings this year are expected to hit 2,000, putting it on par with 2025 at the same point. Last year saw the second highest number of crossings of 41,472.
One dinghy was picked up late on Tuesday afternoon. The Border Force vessel Typhoon was dispatched to rescue the migrants who were then brought back into the Port of Ramsgate around 5pm.
Observers estimated around 70 people were brought ashore.
The crossings continued on Wednesday as a result of the good weather, calm sea conditions and temperatures set to reach 18C (64F) in southern England, the warmest day of the year. Some 545 are understood to have crossed in the 10 boats.
The Border Force catamaran Ranger brought another group into the harbour on Wednesday morning. Sister vessels Volunteer, Typhoon and Defender are currently positioned mid-Channel.
A total of 1,530 migrants had been intercepted so far this year. Tuesday and Wednesday’s arrivals were the first since Feb 9, when 322 migrants crossed the Channel in five boats. Until this week, 597 people in nine dinghies had been picked up in February across three days.
More migrants have crossed the Channel on small boats under Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership than any other prime minister. Some 65,922 migrants have reached the UK across the Channel since Labour won the election 19 months ago at an average rate of 790 a week.
The record figures were a blow for Sir Keir, who came to power with a pledge to “smash the gangs”. Labour has set up a new Border Security Command with powers similar to counter-terror police to combat people smugglers, forged agreements with countries to counter illegal migration and introduced a one in, one out returns scheme with France.
Last month Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, told MPs she could not guarantee that the number of Channel crossings would fall by this time next year, admitting it would take time for the measures to have an impact.
The Telegraph: continue reading
See Related Article Below
UK Government Urged to Stop Paying France for Failed Border Patrols
The patrols cost the British taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds, yet tens of thousands of migrants crossed the Channel last year alone.
MICHAEL CURZON
Last year’s talks between London and Paris officials on stopping illegal Channel migration were clearly right to have been dismissed as “more smoke and empty words,” since reports now say French border forces have failed to stop two-thirds of crossings.
As well as talk, Britain has given more than £700 million (€800 million) to France to bolster patrols. Yet officials let more than 41,000 migrants leave their shores for the UK in 2025 alone, preventing just 35%—that is, around 22,500—of those who tried to make the (often deadly) crossing.
With a three-year agreement running out in March, Britain’s Sun newspaper has stressed that “under no circumstances should Labour even think about signing any new ‘deal’” with the French government, which allows its border forces to “watch idly” as migrants pass them by, adding:
It would be far better instead to focus on ending the incentives for migrants to come here in the first place.
Indeed, Labour Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood herself admitted in November that the UK is attractive to migrants because of its “excessive generosity and [the] ease of remaining.”
The government’s laughably titled ‘one-in, one-out’ migrant deal with France has done absolutely nothing to alter this impression. Just 281 migrants had been returned to France under the scheme as of the end of January, out of the thousands upon thousands who have arrived in Britain—fewer than was previously believed due to what Mahmood described as an “operational complication on the French side.”
Former Conservative Immigration Minister Kevin Foster—whose own party has been consistently useless on the issue of immigration—also on Wednesday told GB News that Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s team should “not pay them [the French] any more” unless a “genuine deterrent” is in place, which is unlikely.
This article (UK Government Urged to Stop Paying France for Failed Border Patrols) was created and published by The European Conservative and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Michael Curzon
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