“Multiple” small boats have been intercepted in the English Channel by the Border Force for the first time this month.
It comes as the Conservatives said 15,000 migrants have now made the crossing so far in 2025, in the “worst year ever for small boat crossings so far”.
A record 14,812 people arrived in the first five months of the year, according to UK government figures.
Migrants are brought to shore in Dover, Kent, on Wednesday. Pic: PA
This has also surpassed the highest total recorded for the first six months of a year, which was previously 13,489 on 30 June last year.
In 2024, the number of arrivals did not reach over 14,000 until 9 July (14,058).
Migrants wearing life jackets were seen being brought ashore from a Border Force vessel in Dover, Kent, on Wednesday morning.
A Maritime and Coastguard Agency spokesperson said the coastguard “coordinated multiple incidents involving small boats in the channel overnight” from Tuesday into Wednesday.
“HM Coastguard continues to monitor ongoing reports,” its statement added.
Migrants wear life jackets after being rescued from small boats in the Channel. Pic: PA
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On Saturday 31 May, some 1,194 migrants arrived in the UK on 18 small boats, government figures revealed.
It was the highest number of arrivals in a single day – far surpassing the previous record of 825 set earlier in May.
Following the record number of arrivals on that Saturday, Defence Secretary John Healey told Sky News Britain has “lost control of its borders” over the past five years.
He told Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips the previous Conservative government left the UK asylum system in “chaos”.
A rescue vessel heads towards Dover after picking up migrants travelling on small boats. Pic: PA
Recent Sky News analysis has shown that migrants are still arriving in considerable numbers on poor weather days – challenging the view that crossings only increase with an improvement in weather.
The data analysis revealed that more people are still making the journey on bad weather days than they were previously, with a rise of 30% compared to last year, and more than double compared to the year before.
Migrants who arrived on small boats walk off a rescue vessel in Dover, Kent. Pic: PA
After vowing to crackdown on illegal immigration, the government is funding elite officers to increase patrols along the northern French coastline and launching a specialist intelligence unit in Dunkirk to track down people smugglers.
It has also established a Border Security Command to lead strategy, and its Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, currently going through parliament, would introduce new criminal offences and hand counter-terror-style powers to law enforcement agencies to target smuggling gangs.
On Wednesday, Rachel Reeves promised funding of up to £280m more per year by the end of the spending review period in 2028-29 for the Border Security Command.
The chancellor also committed to end spending on hotels for asylum seekers by the next general election – which would be in 2029 at the latest, in a plan she said would save taxpayers £1bn a year.
In an attack on the Conservative legacy, she said: “The party opposite left behind a broken system: billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money spent on housing asylum seekers in hotels, leaving people in limbo and shunting the cost of failure onto local communities.
“We won’t let that stand.”
Following Wednesday’s arrivals, shadow home secretary Chris Philp said 15,000 migrants have now crossed the Channel in the “worst year ever for small boat crossings so far”, adding “this is a total collapse of border control”.
