More than 500 migrants arrive in Dover on small boats in just one day – as the total to have made the crossing so far this year reaches 36,000
More than 500 migrants crossed the Channel in just one day, bringing this year’s total to more than 36,000, dealing a humiliating blow to Labour’s ‘one in, one out’ policy.
Some 1,659 migrants arrived on UK shores on 23 boats in the last three days, according to Home Office figures.
And on Wednesday alone more than a thousand people made the perilous journey across the English Channel.
A total of 58,718 migrants have entered the UK by boat since Labor took office, and 36,060 have crossed so far this year.
It comes as the Government’s ‘one in, one out’ scheme was launched two months ago and is billed as a response to the migrant crisis.
But official data shows that the program has only produced 26 people since its inception, while more than 10,000 have arrived.
Wednesday marked the fourth day this year that arrivals exceeded 1,000, approaching the record of 1,305 set in September 2022.
People smuggling gangs are now using 40ft ‘megaboats’ to squeeze ever larger numbers of migrants into deadly crossings.
As one of his first acts in office, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer canceled the Conservative Party’s Rwanda asylum deal, designed to deter migrants and save lives.
Border Force boats arrive in Dover full of migrants as data shows 1,659 people have crossed the channel in the last three days
This means 36,060 migrants have crossed the Channel so far this year, bringing the total since Labor took office to 58,718.
Border Force escorts migrants to Dover Docks on Saturday, October 11, 2025
Migrants being taken to Dover Docks by Border Force today
The Labor Government this week launched a ‘one in, one out’ plan to send back a small portion of migrants arriving by boat across the Channel; In their place, legitimate applicants from France are allowed into Britain.
Labor claims the ‘one in, one out’ plan would undermine people smugglers’ tactics and ‘break up gangs’ by convincing potential migrants that crossing the Channel could be fruitless.
However, it is stated that the program was implemented slowly after facing legal challenges, and even when fully operational, only around 50 immigrants are expected to be removed per week.
It comes after Keir Starmer’s flagship small boat scheme was described as ‘no deterrent’ in September as hundreds of new illegal immigrants continued to flow into Britain.
On the second day of the Prime Minister’s mutual repatriation agreement with France, just two asylum seekers were deported on a scheduled flight, a day after an Indian migrant was also sent back.
At the time, Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy hailed the two deportations as an ‘urgent deterrent’.
But even as an Eritrean and then an Iranian man flew into Paris the other day, it was clear that they had no effect on the hundreds of migrants who were openly heading to the beaches of Northern France.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: ‘Hundreds of illegal immigrants crossed the Channel [yesterday] He is alone and Labor wants applause for sacking only two; Both will be replaced. More than 10,000 people have passed since the meager extradition agreement was announced. Removing only two is pathetic and bragging about it is ridiculous.
‘A plan that would allow 94 percent of illegal immigrants to stay here would have no deterrent effect.’
However, Home Affairs Minister Shabana Mahmood had previously trumpeted the figures received from the UK within the scope of the new agreement with France.
‘The contrast could not be clearer. “The last government’s Rwanda plan took years, cost hundreds of millions of pounds and failed to forcibly displace a single person,” he said.
‘Thanks to the historic agreement we made with France, we returned 26 of them within a few weeks.
‘We must put an end to these dangerous crossings that endanger lives and put money into the pockets of criminal gangs.’
But the Shadow Home Secretary claimed Labor had ‘defrauded the British people’ and branded the new plan a ‘massive fraud’.
‘More than 10,000 illegal immigrants have crossed the Channel since the deal came into force and Labor has only removed 26.
‘This of course won’t deter anyone. We need to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, which will allow us to deport people in a matter of days; This will be a real deterrent.’
