EXCLUSIVE: The Prime Minister has been criticised for his method to stopping small boat crossings.
Migrants have been crossing the English Channel from France. (Picture: Getty)
Sir Keir Starmer has been slammed over his efforts to cease small boats crossing the English Channel after the Residence Workplace stated migrants “might” be deported. Officers stated on X alongside footage of people being processed: “Anybody arriving illegally within the UK by small boat might face removing or deportation.”
New Reform UK MP, Robert Jenrick, informed The Specific: “The boats will solely cease when unlawful migrants know they are going to be deported. Proper now, the one certainty is that they’ll be put up in a lodge at taxpayer expense. Solely Nigel Farage has the conviction to detain and deport these arriving illegally.”
Robert Bates, Analysis Director on the Centre for Migration Management, stated: “The removing of small boat migrants has fallen underneath Labour; there are extra unlawful migrants in inns, and final yr noticed a report variety of asylum claims. Starmer’s dealing with of the small boats disaster has been an absolute catastrophe for this nation.
Anybody arriving Illegally within the UK by small boat might face removing or deportation. pic.twitter.com/qTaQs9TGOv
— Residence Workplace (@ukhomeoffice) February 2, 2026
“This Authorities has to this point spent £40million bribing unlawful migrants to depart the nation and the variety of deportations are means down on the place they have been only a decade in the past.”
£37,779,583 was spent on 11,817 Voluntary Assisted Returns (VARS) between July 2024 and September 2025, analysis carried out by the CMC and GB Information suggests.
This value £3,197 per return.
There is no such thing as a assure that the variety of small boat crossings will fall by this time subsequent yr, the Residence Secretary stated in the present day.
Shabana Mahmood informed MPs that the variety of crossings is “unacceptable”, however she stated there is no such thing as a “silver bullet” and the issue wants “long-term, cautious, painful work” to resolve.
Greater than 65,000 migrants have arrived within the UK after crossing the English Channel since Sir Keir Starmer turned Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister introduced throughout his journey to China that he had negotiated a cope with the Chinese language authorities to forestall boat motors made within the nation from falling into the fingers of individuals smugglers.
The Residence Secretary Shabana Mahmood stated in the present day there is no such thing as a ‘silver bullet’ to cease small boats (Picture: Getty)
A Residence Workplace crackdown on adverts telling migrants find out how to circumvent immigration checks got here into power earlier this week.
Ms Mahmood appeared earlier than the Residence Affairs Committee on Wednesday, the place she was requested by Liberal Democrat MP Ben Maguire a couple of 13% enhance in crossings final yr, together with an asylum “backlog” of tens of hundreds, and when she anticipated numbers to return down.
It was reported in December that migrants could possibly be deported to North Macedonia in an try to discourage folks from making an attempt to cross the Channel.
Final month, it was revealed that small boat arrivals hit a three-year excessive.
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The Authorities admitted {that a} whole of 41,472 migrants made the perilous crossing in 2025 – a 13% rise on the 36,566 in 2024.
A complete of 41,472 migrants arrived within the UK in 2025 after crossing the English Channel – the second-highest annual determine on report.
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