US EditionMigrant small boat Channel crossings in 2025 are second highest ever
The 2025 total of 41,472 migrant Channel crossings is 13% higher than 2024, with an average of 62 people per boat and government reforms aiming to deter arrivals.
- A Home Office spokesperson said the 41,472 migrants crossing the English Channel in 2025 marked a 13% rise from the previous year and was the highest since 2022.
- The Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act introduced new criminal offences and counter-terrorism powers to crack down on people-smuggling gangs.
- Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said most migrants fled oppressive regimes and civil wars and called for safe, legal routes.
64 Articles
64 Articles
Starmer Fails To “Smash the Gangs”: UK Channel Crossings Continued to Rise in 2025
Despite UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s pledge to smash people smuggling gangs, small boat crossings to the UK remained at historically high levels last year with growing criticism from opposition figures that government measures have failed to deter illegal migration. A total of 41,472 migrants arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel in 2025, up from 36,816 the previous year and 41% higher than the 29,437 recorded in 2023. Since Labour ca…
In 2025, the number of migrants arriving across the English Channel rose to a new record.
At least 29 people died at sea in the past year. This increase in arrivals is bad news for Keir Starmer's government, faced with the rise of Nigel Farage's Reform UK anti-immigration party.
UK says small boat migrant arrivals approached record levels in 2025
The number of migrants reaching the UK in small boats in 2025 climbed to its second-highest level since records began, official figures showed on Thursday, piling pressure on Prime Minister Keir Starmer as anti-immigration sentiments gain ground ahead of key local elections in May.
By 2022, 45,000 migrants had joined the UK. A sad record, of which 2025 approached dangerously with 41,000 people arriving in England, despite the tightening of the border on the British side and the rise of police forces on the coast. Utopia 56 responded.
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