A record 28,076 people have crossed the English Channel in small boats so far this year, according to new government figures — a 46% jump compared to the same period in 2024.
The surge has intensified pressure on Prime Minister Keir Starmer, with immigration now topping the list of public concerns. Protests outside hotels housing asylum seekers have become a regular sight, highlighting growing frustration in communities.
The latest milestone was reached on Sunday, when 212 migrants arrived in just four boats, pushing numbers past last year’s record.
The Home Office has not yet commented on the figures.
Over the weekend, protests flared across the country after a court ordered asylum seekers to be removed from a hotel in Epping, northeast of London — the latest flashpoint in Britain’s heated immigration debate.
Starmer’s Labour government has promised to end the use of hotels for housing migrants by 2029 and overhaul what ministers describe as a broken asylum system. On Sunday, the government announced reforms aimed at speeding up appeals and tackling a backlog of more than 100,000 cases.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the new measures were designed to restore “control and order” to a system she called “in complete chaos.”
Meanwhile, asylum applications are at record levels, and more people are being placed in hotels than a year ago.
On the opposite side of the debate, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, which is currently leading some opinion polls, has promised “mass deportations” of small-boat arrivals. His proposals include pulling Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights, banning asylum claims altogether, and building detention centres for up to 24,000 people. Farage also told The Times he would negotiate repatriation deals with countries such as Afghanistan and Eritrea, and even run daily deportation flights. Photo by Mstyslav Chernov/Unframe, Wikimedia commons.