The small boats crisis is getting worse, not better
And it’s becoming a powerful symbol of something much bigger
MATT GOODWIN
It’s official. Keir Starmer’s record on stopping the small boats is now the worst of any prime minister since the illegal immigration crisis began, in 2018.
Just look at the latest numbers, which make a total mockery of our country’s claim to be a sovereign, independent nation which has taken back control.
Since the beginning of this year alone, astonishingly, some 6,642 illegal migrants have entered Britain on 119 small boats.
That’s up 40 per cent on the number at the same point last year. This crisis, in other words, is getting worse, not better.
And look at the longer trend.
Since Keir Starmer and Labour came to power last July, while promising to ‘smash the gangs’ that are smuggling migrants into Britain, nearly 30,000 illegal migrants have arrived on some 542 small boats.
That’s an average of 780 migrants every week under Keir Starmer, compared to 570 under Rishi Sunak and 400 under Boris Johnson.
This takes the total number of arrivals since the crisis began, in 2018 to an eye-watering 157,780 illegal migrants on 4,408 boats.
More people have now entered Britain illegally on the small boats, as I’ve pointed out before, than are in the British army.
It’s a shocking fact, isn’t it?
And the number looks set to soar even higher unless we urgently and radically change direction. According to one think-tank, another 60,000 could arrive this year.
Not that you’ll hear about any of this from Keir Starmer, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, and our utterly incompetent Labour government, of course.
In recent days, they’ve remained in some kind of fantasy land, continuing to gaslight the hardworking, taxpaying, law-abiding British people by claiming they’re getting on top of the small boats crisis when, in reality, they’re doing no such thing.
Only this week, for example, Labour announced a raft of new measures.
At yet another pointless international summit in London —this time attended by ministers, law enforcement, and social media representatives from some forty countries— Keir Starmer declared to the world that he is “angry” about illegal migration and that, for too long, Britain has been “a soft touch” on the issue.
Countries around the world, he said, would now be sharing intelligence, resources, and tactics —leaving one to wonder what on earth they’ve been doing until now.
Social media firms, he went on, have been told to take down TikTok videos that illegal migrants share on their journey across the Channel to advertise and mock the fact that our national borders have become a total joke and disgrace —as if removing a few online videos might discourage some of the estimated 117 million displaced persons around the world from seeking a more secure and better life in Europe.
Labour’s Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, then announced she has found another £33 million of taxpayers’ money to throw at the spiralling crisis, which will be spent on “high impact operations” that will “tackle supply chains, illicit finances and trafficking routes” and prosecute people smugglers.
And then, on top of all that, Keir Starmer, with a straight face, announced that since coming to office his Labour government has already returned some “24,000 people who have no right to be here”.
Sorry, but do Keir Starmer, Yvette Cooper, and the Labour government think we are idiots —do they think we will fall for this?
Because while they might think all this will work in that other galaxy they appear to be living in, back here in reality it’s obvious to everybody it will do no such thing.
As I first argued back in May 2023, before Labour even came to power and before the number of illegal migrants continued to explode, focusing only on ‘smashing the gangs’ will never work because it’s the equivalent of playing an international game of Whac-A-Mole —once you get rid of one gang, another just pops up to fill its place.
This is why the numbers will just keep going up and up —no matter how many people smugglers you throw in prison, no matter how many boats you capture, no matter how many people you put under surveillance, no matter how many TikTok videos you take down.
Furthermore, the idea that Labour is now suddenly returning record numbers of illegal migrants is also for the birds.
In reality, what Labour ministers are not telling you is they are actually approving the vast majority of claims for asylum that are being made by illegal migrants.
This, in turn, is sending an enormous bat signal to other would-be illegal migrants around the world to come to Britain, knowing their chance of staying is very high.
Even BBC Verify just pointed out Starmer’s claims make absolutely no sense, although, predictably, fell short of saying what he is actually doing —lying to the people.
While over there in fantasy land Keir Starmer is talking about a ‘record return’ of some 24,000 people, back here in reality only 6,339 of these are “enforced returns”.
Most of the people who have left Britain have been “voluntary returns” while many have left the country without the Labour government even being involved at all.
Look at the second half of last year.
More than 23,000 people entered Britain illegally on the small boats but only 1,053 of them, or 4.5 per cent of the total, were removed and returned. This is absurd.
And it speaks to a much deeper and more profound point that I think is on the minds of millions of Brits in this country.
The small boats crisis is not just breaking our laws, the British people’s sense of fairness, and making a mockery of our claim to be a sovereign nation that has regained control of its borders.
In the eyes of millions of Brits, the small boats crisis has also become a powerful symbol of the much wider failure of the state to manage mass immigration, integration, and multiculturalism.
It’s not just the small boats, is it?
It’s the fact that one million people in this country cannot even speak English, or the fact that nearly one in four primary school children in England do not speak English as their main language.
It’s the fact that nearly half of all social housing in our capital city has gone to people who were not even born in the UK, or the fact, as I’ve repeatedly shown in this newsletter, that there are many areas in England where most social housing has gone to foreigners who often do not work, do not speak English, and do not choose to identify with a British or English identity.
It’s the fact that more British Muslims left this country to join extremist Islamist death-cults overseas than are serving in the British army, or the fact there are currently 85 sharia courts operating in Britain.
It’s the fact that when they were recently asked how they identify ‘first and foremost’ 71% of British Muslims said ‘as a Muslim’ while only 27% said ‘as British/English’
It’s the fact that one in every fifty people in this country only arrived in the last two years, or the fact that nearly 90 per cent of all immigration into Britain is now coming from outside Europe —often from radically different if not incompatible cultures.
It’s the fact that mainstream businesses in this country such as Five Guys in Birmingham are now banning pork and alcohol or that we now have candidates at national and local elections running on explicitly sectarian lines, more concerned about Gaza than Britain.
It’s this glaring failure of the state, this shocking incompetence to manage the dire effects of mass immigration that is dividing our nation, eroding public trust in the system, and laying a foundation for a very uncertain and unpredictable future.
If our leaders were serious about fixing all this, if they were serious about prioritising the safety, security, and rights of the British people then they would, as I’ve consistently argued, make four key changes.
They’d leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which is being used by an assortment of illegal migrants and foreign criminals to avoid deportation.
They’d reform if not repeal Tony Blair’s Human Rights Act (HRA), which entrenches the ECHR into domestic UK law.
They’d create an active deterrent by establishing an offshore processing centre where all asylum claims will be processed and dealt with, ensuring that anybody who arrives in Britain illegally will be immediately detained and deported while also being kept well away from the British people, their communities and children.
And they’d dramatically reduce the amount of welfare that we currently offer to asylum-seekers and refugees, which has also led our European partners to complain that we are providing more incentives than deterrents.
This is what’s needed to fundamentally deal with this crisis. This is what’s needed to fix our borders and restore public trust.
This is what’s needed to prioritise the British people over those who break our laws. And this is what’s needed so that we can leave the fantasy land Labour politicians like Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper are living in and get back to reality.
This article (The small boats crisis is getting worse, not better) was created and published by Matt Goodwin and is republished here under “Fair Use”
See Related Article Below
Smash the boats and the UK’s “small boat” crisis will end.
PETER HALLIGAN
Guesstimates range from around a million to two million economic migrant beggars have entered th UK over the last decade or so.
“Legal” migrants, such as medics and students – plus dependents – number 2-3 million.
We can reconcile those numbers to the growth in the UK population since 2015 from fertility, mortality, and migration of +4.4 million since 2015 to the current 69 million.
Glasgow (the Uk’s fifth largest city) has cried “uncle” after thousands of migrant beggars entered, despite stating that it welcomed any and all “asylum seekers”, just a few years ago. Now its social services are overwhelmed. Be careful what you wish for!
Glasgow’s problems are echoed in every town and city in the United Kingdom. It would be easy to claim that the UK’s migrant problem is unique within Europe, but of course, it isn’t. Every town and city in Europe has a similar migrant beggar problem.
These migrants do not all come from war-torn countries. Remember how Angela Merkel took in a million “refugees” in 2015 and then whined about their failure to “assimilate”?
Here’s how Brave AI describes the four main routes taken:
“The main migrant routes into the EU include the Central Mediterranean route, the Western Mediterranean route, the Eastern Mediterranean route, and the Western Balkan route.
- Central Mediterranean Route: This route involves migrants traveling from Libya and Tunisia, aiming primarily for Italy and Malta. In 2024, there was a significant decrease of 59% in arrivals via this route, but it still accounted for about 67,000 crossings, the second highest among all routes. The top nationalities along this route are Bangladeshis, Syrians, and Tunisians, accounting for around half of all migrants arriving via this route.
- Western Mediterranean Route: This route connects West Africa (and further north) with the Spanish Canary Islands. In 2024, the Canary Islands saw an 18% increase in arrivals to almost 47,000, the highest figure since Frontex began collecting data in 2009. Malians, Senegalese, and Moroccans are the top nationalities arriving on this route.
- Eastern Mediterranean Route: This route leads from Turkey to Greece. In 2015, this route saw the largest number of arrivals, with 885,000 people using it to reach the EU, mostly Syrian refugees escaping their country’s civil war. In 2024, around 69,400 detections were reported, showing a 14% increase compared to 2023.
-
Western Balkan Route: This route involves migrants traveling through the Western Balkans and other Eastern EU countries. In 2024, there was a significant 78% fall in the number of irregular crossings via this route.
These routes have seen varying levels of activity and changes over time, influenced by political and economic conditions in both origin and transit countries, as well as EU policies aimed at managing migration flows.”
Each route comes with its unique levels of corruption. In the same way that the US can identify migrant caravans approaching its border, EU national police can monitor the, albeit smaller, caravans of migrants and their handlers.
The EU does not publish statistics on migrant beggars. Here’s what Brave AI says for numbers over the last ten years:
“The number of migrants entering the EU varies each year. In 2023, 155,754 migrants arrived in Italy illegally, compared to 103,846 in 2022.2 In 2024, a record number of 46,843 migrants, mostly from Senegal, Mali, and Morocco, arrived illegally in Spain’s Canary Islands, up from 39,910 in 2023.2 Since 2013, over 700,000 undocumented migrants have arrived in Italy via the Mediterranean Sea, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa.”
85,000 to the Canary Islands in two years!!! It only has a population of 2.2 million!!
Aside from the point that the UK is receiving a “spillover” of migrant beggars, the point is that the UK claims it is powerless to stop the “small boats” crossing the English Channel.
This claim from a nation that evacuated 339,000 troops from Dunkirk in 1940, defeated the Spanish Armada (with some help from the weather) and plundered the Spanish treasure ships at the same time, whether that was buccaneers, privateers or pirates!
Yje migrant beggars leave the French coast – waved on by the local Gendarmes – with impunity.
What’s t stop a team of saboteurs disabling th boats doing the trafficking? A few dozen or a few hundred brave souls would put a stop to the practise in a heartbeat. If there are any concerns about the intervention of th gendarmes. How abut disabling the small boars a few yards from disembarkations! I’m not saying it would be “fun” but think of the money that would be save by the UK in terms of accommodation, welfare benefits and legal fees!
Fun fact, from here:
UK to pay $576 million in deal with France to combat illegal immigration | CNN
“UK to pay $576 million in deal with France to combat illegal immigration”.
That was an idea from the defeated Tory government of 2023.
“The deal was announced during a joint summit between British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Friday.
The money will finance a new detention center for migrants in France and the deployment of 500 French security and support agents “to enable the fastest detection of attempted crossings” by small boats, a joint statement from the two countries said.”
Pay $575 million or disable all the “small boats” before or during their launch. Decisions, decisions!!!
Here’s some history, per Brave AI:
“The slaves liberated by the UK Navy, often referred to as “Liberated Africans,” had several fates. Many were given the option to settle on St Helena, the remote British outpost in the South Atlantic where they were brought ashore, or they could choose to travel to other destinations such as the West Indies, Cape Town, or later, Sierra Leone.
However, many of the slaves had suffered terribly during their voyages, and due to the harsh conditions, a significant number died shortly after being freed. For instance, when HMS Waterwitch captured a slave ship in December 1840, 37 of the 245 rescued slaves died immediately or during the 13-day journey to St Helena.”
“It is estimated that between 1808 and 1869, the Royal Navy seized more than 1,600 slavers’ ships globally and freed about 150,000 Africans shackled on board them.”
Different times and far larger numbers these days!
Please take a subscription to gain access to the thousands of hours of research that go into producing these SubStack articles – or make a donation of $3 bucks or more for a ko-fi here:
Onwards!!!
This article (Smash the boats and the UK’s “small boat” crisis will end.) was created and published by Peter Halligan and is republished here under “Fair Use”
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