Small boat arrivals are set to fall well short of dire warnings issued when Labour came to power.
Ministers were told to expect more than 50,000 crossings by the end of 2024. But with a week to go the figure is just over 35,000, despite a record number of ‘red days’ – days where weather conditions are best suited for crossings – in the second half of the year.
New analysis found that despite favourable weather, arrivals in the last six months will be around 10,000 lower than the same period in 2022. An insider said this represents “considerable progress”.
But the Government has said it is still “early days” and said ministers would not be repeating mistakes by their Tory predecessors. Since July there have been 82 ‘red days’, compared to 50 in the same period last year.
Former Home Secretary James Cleverly was branded a “moron” by Nigel Farage when he claimed the weather did not lead to a drop in crossings at the end of last year. Mr Cleverly went on to preside over a record start to 2024.
A Government source said: “It is very early days to draw any conclusions about the impact of the new government’s strategy… Nobody wants to repeat the mistake of the previous Home Secretary by claiming success at the end of December 2023 only to preside over a record number of arrivals for January-June 2024.
“However, having inherited that worst ever start to a year, and then faced a higher number of ‘red days’ in the second half of 2024 than the record year of 2022 (and three-quarters more than 2023), it is notable that the year-end total for arrivals is nowhere close to the 50,000 originally feared.”