Second highest number of small boat migrants arrived in UK last year: More than 41,000 crossed Channel in 2025 – taking total to 65K since Labour came to power

A total of 41,472 migrants arrived in the UK in 2025 after crossing the English Channel, the second highest annual figure on record, putting paid to Keir Starmer‘s vow to smash smuggling gangs and cut small boat crossings.

The Home Office confirmed on Thursday that no migrants made the journey on New Year’s Eve meaning the overall number of arrivals last year finished 9 per cent below the all-time high of 45,774 in 2022.

Embarrassingly for the Government, the total for 2025 was 13 per cent higher than the figure for 2024, when 36,816 migrants made the journey, and 41 per cent higher than 2023’s total of 29,437.

More and more people seeking asylum are packing themselves into boats, with an average of 62 arrivals per boat last year, up from 53 in 2024 and 49 in 2022.

Keir Starmer is also less than 1,000 migrants away from an unwanted record – having the most people cross the Channel in his premiership after less than two years.

As of yesterday, 64,714 people have made the journey after 545 days in office, at a rate of 118 a day. Boris Johnson saw 65,676 people cross during his time in Government after 1,140 days – an average of just 57 a day.

The Conservatives and Reform have both blasted Labour’s failure to tackle the growing small boats crisis and to deport those who arrive illegally, blaming Starmer’s reluctance to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: ‘Small boat crossings are the inevitable product of a system that guarantees entry and obstructs removal.

‘As long as the ECHR sits at the centre of our asylum system, illegal immigration is effectively hardwired in. Until Labour confront that reality, nothing they announce will ever change the outcome.

‘There is no deterrent and anyone who crosses the Channel know they can invoke human rights law and remain indefinitely. Labour lack the backbone to confront that truth.’

The number of migrants making crossings to Britain was the second highest on record in 2025 (pictured: people rushing to a smuggler’s boat in August)

Keir Starmer is now just 1,000 migrants short of an unenviable record: the most people crossing by small boat of any Prime Minister since the crisis began in 2018

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said Sir Keir Starmer’s plan to ‘smash the gangs’ had been ‘a complete disaster’ and the ‘one in, one out’ deal with France is a ‘farce’.

‘The numbers coming over are huge,’ he said. ‘Many of the young men that have arrived last year will do us great harm.’

For much of 2025, the number of arrivals was running at the highest level since data on Channel crossings was first published in 2018.

But the pace slowed during the last two months of the year and there were long periods when no migrants arrived, including a 28-day run from November 15 to December 12.

The Government faced increasing pressure in 2025 to tackle the number of migrants making the hazardous journey across the Channel, having won the general election in July 2024 vowing to ‘smash the gangs’ of people-smugglers who organise crossings.

The UK’s Border Security Commander, Martin Hewitt, tasked with curbing Channel crossings, told MPs in October that the number of arrivals in 2025 is ‘frustrating’ but that work to stop the smuggling route was ‘always going to take time’.

Labour has introduced new laws in its bid to curtail small boat crossings: time will tell whether they yield any results. 

The Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act became law in December, which introduces new criminal offences and allows law enforcement agencies to use counter terror-style powers to crack down on people-smuggling gangs.

In November, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood also ‘the most significant changes to our asylum system in modern times’ with a raft of reforms that, she said, would deter people from coming to the UK and make it easier to deport them.

Migrants are seen being taken from a Border Force patrol boat on December 20 2025 – one of the last days a crossing was made last year

People run to board a smuggler’s boat in Gravelines, France, in August last year. The Government is under pressure to cut the number of crossings

Under changes inspired by the Danish system, refugee status will become temporary with regular reviews every 30 months, and refugees will be forced to wait 20 years for permanent settlement in the UK, up from five years currently.

But the plans, which are yet to be introduced under legislation, sparked a backlash from a number of Labour MPs who saw the proposals as something akin to that mooted by Nigel Farage and Reform UK.

Meanwhile, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said the measures did not go far enough, adding that leaving the ECHR was necessary to address the problem. The Tories have vowed to deport 150,000 people a year if they return to power.

Both the Conservatives and Reform UK have pressed the Government on quitting the human rights treaty as a way to tackle illegal immigration, as it has been used by many asylum seekers in order to fight appeals against deportation.

Labour has insisted it will not leave the ECHR and instead seek to adjust how immigration cases are interpreted in UK law.

Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy also met ministers from ECHR member states last month, who agreed to consider reforming the treaty to address illegal migration.

International cooperation has also formed part of the Government’s strategy, such as through the ‘one in, one out’ returns deal with France that came into force in August.

Under the pilot scheme people who arrive in the UK by small boat can be detained and returned to France, in exchange for an equivalent number of people who apply through a safe and legal route.

On December 16, border security minister Alex Norris told peers that 193 migrants had been sent back to France and 195 had arrived in the UK under the returns deal so far, aimed at deterring people making the dangerous journey across the Channel.

But the scheme has drawn criticism as being ‘no deterrent at all’ by shadow home secretary Chris Philp, amid cases of two migrants returning to the UK after being removed to France under the deal. They have since been deported again.

In recent days, French police have also refused to interfere with boats leaving France to make for England after the country’s top policing union told its members they could be held liable for the deaths of any migrants as a result.

A source at the French interior ministry told The Mail on Sunday: ‘The police want guarantees that there will be no prosecutions in case of death or injury, but prosecutors say that is impossible.’

At least 17 people died while attempting the journey last year, according to reports by French and UK authorities, but there is no official record of fatalities in the Channel.

A police officer enters the water trying to stop a man from boarding a boat in Gravelines, France in June 2025. Recently, officers have refused to interfere with boats over fears they will be held liable for any fatalities

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch (pictured in August) has vowed to take Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights if she wins power

The International Organisation for Migration has reported several more migrant deaths of 36 people, which are believed to be linked to attempts to travel from mainland Europe to the UK.

Reacting to the total number of Channel crossings for 2025, Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: ‘Most men, women and children taking these journeys have fled oppressive regimes like the Taliban in Afghanistan and brutal civil wars in countries like Sudan.

‘No-one risks their life on a flimsy boat in the Channel except out of desperation to be safe in a country where they have family or community connections.

‘It’s right the Government wants to stop Channel crossings but plans that will punish people found to be refugees are unfair and not an effective deterrent.’

He added that there needs to be a ‘multi-pronged approach’, including targeting gangs and international cooperation to ensure refugees can access safe and legal routes – something Ms Mahmood has included in plans to overhaul the asylum system.

The Home Secretary’s asylum reforms could also end the Government’s legal duty to provide asylum seeker support, which means housing and weekly allowances for asylum seekers will not be guaranteed.

The Government has promised to end the housing of asylum seekers in hotels by 2029 amid mounting pressure over rising costs and a backlash in local communities.

A wave of protests took place over the summer centred particularly around the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, after an asylum seeker who had arrived by small boat in the UK and was temporarily housed there was charged and later jailed and deported for sexually assaulting a woman and 14-year-old girl.