More than 450 people crossed the English Channel in small boats on Christmas Day, according to Home Office figures.
Some 451 people arrived on 11 boats on December 25, data updated on Thursday showed. They are the first boat arrivals for more than a week.
The last time vessels carrying people were known to have arrived was on December 14, when 160 people arrived in three boats. The figures take the total number of crossings in 2024 to 35,491, around 21% higher than last year, but about 22% down on 2022.
The last time there were crossings on Christmas Day was 2022 when 90 people arrived. There were 67 the year before in 2021.
Keir Starmer has made “smashing the gangs” who facilitate small boat crossings one of his top priorities since coming to power. The Prime Minister has set up a new Border Security Command, and is attempting to work more closely with the UK’s European neighbours to pull apart organised crime gangs involved in people smuggling.
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The Mirror reported yesterday that 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.
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.”