Article 20,000 migrants have crossed English Channel this year, a record high (Labour style)

[C C]

https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20250...ecord-high

NEWS: Nearly 20,000 asylum seekers have arrived in Britain on small boats so far in 2025, a record high for the first six months of the year, adding pressure on Prime Minister Keir Starmer as the government works to reduce the numbers.

Data from Britain's interior ministry showed that 879 migrants arrived on Monday, taking the total for the first half of 2025 to 19,982, a 50% jump from a year earlier.

Starmer is under pressure to deal with the thousands of people who cross the Channel each year on dangerous, inflatable dinghies, a key issue for voters, as he pledges to "smash the gangs" behind the people smuggling trade.

The government says more than 24,000 people with no right to be in the UK had been returned since it took office last July, and that good weather and new techniques to pack more people into boats were helping more migrants make the crossing. In 2024, 73 people died trying to cross the Channel in small boats.

The government also pledged to end the costly use of hotels to house asylum seekers. But Labour's failure to get a grip on small boat arrivals has helped boost Nigel Farage's right-wing, anti-immigration Reform UK party, which has topped national opinion polls.

"(The small boat numbers are) a record and will only increase if we continue to give them everything when they arrive," Farage wrote on X.

Starmer had set out proposals in May to bring down overall immigration, warning that Britain risked becoming "an island of strangers", remarks that were criticised as being too divisive and for which he has since expressed regret.

Earlier this year, the government also upheld a ban on asylum seekers being able to claim protections under modern slavery and other human rights laws, a move criticised by human rights groups.

[stryder]

What tends to get missed about the small boat crossings is "how the UK to this point".

Farage was responsible for UKIP, which at one point held a majority of the MEP (European MP positions) prior to Britexit. As MEP, UKIP had absolutely no intension of doing the actual job of an MEP and didn't aid the UK any since their underlining plan was to Exit europe. In essence it was "Bridge Burning".

Eventually Britexit happened (and what a Farce that was, it wasn't thought out, it wasn't properly planned, it was just "Burn the Bridges to Europe and we're done")

Now comes the point where the UK as an isolated kingdom from it's Bridge Burning, is trying to deal with issues and situations that would of been something that could of been dealt with by MEP's prior to the exit, and this is likely why European countries are prety reluctant to bother stopping anyone trying to get to the UK.
(e.g. the UK burnt it's bridges, theres no reason to do what is asked etc.)

Now Farage with his Reform party has the Boats as something to drill on about. It's literally something he and his previous party created, and is now a problem he can use to put his new party in the constant limelight. While people might have sided with him on the opinion polls initially, they do really need to take a good long hard look at how we got to this point and maybe, just maybe they'll realise that reform isn't the answer. It's just another snake oil salesmen in sheep clothing.

If we want to stop the boats for real, then severe change needs to be done on how the entire situation leading up to people getting on boats happens.

Consider at some point a person is potentially not actively criminal, that label only applies when they go too far and cross the line, at which point the government currently wants to use the law (Using sticks to chase off the criminals etc). If the government was smart (which obviously is something that can be conjectured as being unfathomable) then perhaps they would look at interjecting at a point prior to that line being crossed and create a fluid direction that encourages people to use that route over the illegal one. (Using a carrot to provide opportunities that redirection focus etc.)

Its therefore possible to create a solution for the problem, one that could eventually fund itself and be applied to multiple countries if looked at further, however it means getting the current government to "...pull that stick out their arse".

[Syne]

If you think the EU would help, you're daft. Claiming someone "created" a situation that was being overtly driven by the EU (that they were trying to escape) is utter nonsense.
Making it easier to immigrate legally solves nothing at all. You're just decriminalizing, like we've seen with drugs, prostitution, etc.. Those schemes never lessen the activity.

[Syne]

Farage was responsible for UKIP, which at one point held a majority of the MEP (European MP positions) prior to Britexit. As MEP, UKIP had absolutely no intension of doing the actual job of an MEP and didn't aid the UK any since their underlining plan was to Exit europe. In essence it was "Bridge Burning".
...
Now Farage with his Reform party has the Boats as something to drill on about. It's literally something he and his previous party created, and is now a problem he can use to put his new party in the constant limelight.

Yet..

[...] Nigel Farage tops the grade table for the year – the only leader to get an A from his own voters, and a B overall. He has picked up the extra marks by being visible, getting people talking, articulating people’s frustration and turning it into local election votes. People see that his party is branching out beyond immigration to talk about energy, industry, welfare, policing and more... (MORE - missing details)