Only five people have been convicted of piloting small boats across the English Channel this year despite Labour’s pledge to crack down on smugglers and more than 119 dinghies containing a record 6,642 migrants making the journey. The Telegraph has more.
At least 119 dinghies have arrived in Britain from France in the past three months, with the numbers increasing amid warmer weather and calmer seas.
Despite all of the boats requiring someone to operate the outboard engine and steer, just five people who made the journey this year have been charged and convicted.
In total, a record 6,642 people crossed the Channel in small boats this year in 119 vessels, Home Office data show.
Since the start of the year, the Home Office confirmed that only five individuals have appeared in court charged with the offence.
A spokesman said: “Since January 1st 2025, CFI Immigration Enforcement has convicted 17 individuals for piloting a small boat, including five who committed the offence in 2025.
“In 2024, 64 individuals were convicted.”
Last month, the Telegraph revealed that the rate of migrant Channel crossings under Sir Keir Starmer had been higher than under any of his Conservative predecessors.
The record number of 6,642 migrants have reached the UK this year, up from 4,600 at the same point in 2024.
It has coincided with a doubling in the number of ‘red days’, when the calm weather and sea conditions are conducive to crossings from 16 to 34, compared with the same period in 2024.
Smuggler behaviour has changed over time, with dinghies embarking on the 21-mile trip from Pas-de-Calais to Kent, cramming ever more people on board.
It was previously assumed that the maximum number of migrants capable of being crowded onto a single small boat was 50.
However, the average number of migrants in each of the 119 recorded boats that crossed this year was 56, compared with 53 last year and 49 the year before.
Last year was also the deadliest in the Channel, with at least 78 fatalities. …
Richard Tice, Deputy Leader of Reform UK, said: “This is another absurd example of our failed justice and immigration system.
“Every single illegal migrant should be immediately charged with breaking the law upon arrival and detained. Instead, our public sector is riddled with woke Lefty sympathisers”.
Lee Anderson, Mr Tice’s colleague, called for a national emergency to be declared to tackle the small boats crisis.
He said: “Starmer promised to smash the gangs but all he has done is smash the records set by the previous government.
“It is time for a national emergency to be declared as I had asked for three years ago”.
Worth reading in full.
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Interesting inside look at the asylum system from this doctor;
”I am the clinical lead in an asylum hotel in the north of England. We’re right in the centre of town. Though we try to keep a low profile, that’s not always easy with 24-hour security guards in hi-vis patrolling the entrance. The building is modern, but it was never intended to house hundreds of people long-term. It’s starting to degrade quickly. My role is to provide a GP service within the hotel.
I have to be inexact about certain aspects – but let me tell you this: the Home Office is not focused on the details in any meaningful way. At the hotel where I work, the physical building is owned by a group of investors. The security is contracted to the lowest bidder for this kind of work. Day-to-day operations are run by a large housing management firm.
You have to comb their websites for any information about their activities in the area. The asylum-industrial complex is largely run by for-profit contractors, each leveraging their slice of the cake for further enrichment.
The space I work in is extremely secretive. Part of that comes from the housing companies making phenomenal profits from commodifying people. This is a business led by algorithms and obsessed with process. Several of these providers also run prisons, probation services and custody suites; there’s a hardness to their culture – it can be unkind and arbitrary.
In many ways, it’s like a prison: nobody has anything, so the only thing you have of value is your word. I’ve learnt never to promise anything I can’t deliver.
People are not always who they say they are. Most arrivals are undocumented, having disposed of their papers along the way. The Home Office assigns them a name and date of birth based on whatever they declare. People do this to reinvent themselves – they may have tried and failed previously under their original name, or they may be wanted overseas. There is no way to verify it. They are given a new identity and that becomes who they are in the UK. Some have already been granted the right to remain in other European countries and then left to try their luck here, where they have stronger family networks. I have met families who have been on the road for years.”
https://article.wn.com/view/2025/04/10/I_work_at_a_migrant_hotel_Even_when_residents_are_granted_as/
“What’s the difference between cigarettes and illegal immigrants?
You’re only allowed 200 cigarettes into the UK before the authorities start asking questions.” A Meme.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DHV8-kSoG0h/?igsh=N3R1bmE0N3o5MTR4
Nigel’s got it sorted.
You can come here in vast numbers and within a few short years the towns you live in will start to remind you of home. It amuses me how potentates in far fling countries love the British immigration policy because it means that they can off-load their criminal classes here which cost a lot of money to contain at home. The British love of cheap labour and scraping the barrel and the race to the bottom is something to behold.
Is it a surprise that with every mention of a trade deal with India the first thing that comes up is allowing more of them to come here to the imperial nation they are supposed to hate? Maybe it is revenge….
How low do you want to go? Please stop. Is it the lure of that final sound in the bathtube when the last of the water goes gurgling down? Is it self-punishment for empire? Surely you can see the futility of money worship and how everything valuable lies outside of the realm of money. Cheap taxi drivers and delivery drivers. Cheap nannies and restaurant staff. Is it really worth it?