Dozens of Channel migrants arrive after Keir Starmer axed Rwanda plan
Dozens of Channel migrants including children arrived in Dover today after a group were seen scrambling from a French beach into dinghies bound for the UK – just days after Sir Keir Starmer axed the Tories‘ Rwanda plan.
For the second day in a row, people were brought ashore at the Port of Dover despite persistent wet and windy weather.
Pictures showed youngsters among the group of migrants wearing life jackets, with some wrapped in blankets, as they came into the Kent port on Border Force and RNLI lifeboats.
The arrivals came as three asylum seekers who brought legal action over their potential removals to Rwanda had their cases resolved at the High Court on Tuesday after the new Labour Government decided to scrap the deportation policy.
More than 13,600 migrants have arrived in the UK so far this year after crossing the Channel.
People thought to be migrants pictured arriving at Dover in the days after Sir Keir Starmer’s landslide election victory
An RNLI Lifeboat and a Border Force vessel pictured off the coast of Dover. For the second day in a row, people were brought ashore today at the port despite inclement weather
Sir Keir pictured outside No10 after a cabinet meeting on July 9. He scrapped the Rwanda plan shortly after becoming Prime Minister
The first migrants to cross the Channel since Labour’s election victory arrived after crossings resumed on Monday for the first time in six days amid poor weather conditions at sea
This is nine per cent more than the number recorded by the same time last year (12,503) and up four per cent on the same period in 2022 (13,172), according to government data.
Tuesday’s figures will be confirmed when the Home Office publishes the next set of data on Wednesday.
It comes after 65 people made the journey in one boat yesterday after a six-day pause in activity – the first crossings since Labour’s election victory.
This took the total to 13,639 for 2024 so far, which has already seen a record number for the first six months of a calendar year.
Pictures showed groups of people arriving from France wearing life jackets, and some wrapped in blankets, being escorted off a Border Force boat in Dover, Kent, with children among those seen being carried ashore.
Crossings resumed on the same day Home Secretary Yvette Cooper launched a Border Security Command designed to crack down on the gangs orchestrating the crossings.
Ms Cooper branded the Rwanda migrant deportation scheme a ‘complete con’ yesterday as she hinted Labour would try to recoup some of the £290million spent before it was axed.
Ms Cooper said she planned to audit the programme to send Channel boat arrivals to east Africa, which was axed by Sir Keir Starmer in one of his first decisions after entering No10.
But almost a third of a billion pounds has already been given to the Kagame government, despite the only migrants to leave Britain being four volunteers.
Questions will be raised over how much can be recouped. But Ms Cooper told LBC radio: ‘We are auditing the whole scheme… It has clearly been a complete con.’
Ms Cooper said setting up the Border Security Command unit was Labour’s first priority on migration as she faced questions on the future of the Bibby Stockholm barge, which is being used to house asylum seekers in Portland, Dorset.
The new Home Secretary Yvette Cooper pictured at Lewisham Police Station in south London on Monday. She said she planned to audit the programme to send boat arrivals to east Africa
It came as more boats crossed from France to be picked up by Border Force yesterday
The Home Office will confirm how many people made the journey on Monday, the first under the new Labour administration, in data published on Tuesday (pictured: A group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover, Kent on Monday)
She did not confirm whether the Government would abandon use of the barge but told reporters: ‘We need to clear the Conservatives’ asylum backlog, but the first priority has to be to get the stronger border security in place, and that is why our first step is setting up the new border security command.’
Over the weekend Sir Keir Starmer said the stalled multi-million pound plan to send migrants to Rwanda is ‘dead and buried’ as he confirmed the deportation policy is to be scrapped.
The Prime Minister said he was ‘not prepared to continue with gimmicks’ as Labour announced plans to free the last two migrants who were detained ahead of anticipated flights.
Asked if she has had any contact with Rwanda about winding the plan down and getting any money back, Ms Cooper said: ‘Well, the Prime Minister has obviously set out the position on the Rwanda scheme where as we know, the Conservatives ran this scheme for two and a half years, and sent simply four volunteers as well as hundreds of millions of pounds.’
She said her ‘key priority’ as incoming Home Secretary is to ‘strengthen Britain’s border security, where I think we have been let down for too long’.
