The number of migrants crossing the English Channel has surged past 11,000 for the year, marking the earliest point the milestone has been reached since records began. The latest crossings come amid a spell of warm and calm weather, with pictures showing people, including children, wearing life jackets being brought ashore in Dover on what has been confirmed as the warmest day of the year so far.
According to Home Office figures, some 294 people made the dangerous journey in five small boats on Wednesday, bringing the provisional total for 2025 to 11,074. This follows the arrival of 473 migrants on Monday, when the cumulative total for the year stood at 10,358. Crossings continued into Thursday, further swelling the numbers.
This year’s total represents a sharp rise compared to previous years. At this point in 2024, 7,567 people had made the crossing, while by early May in 2023, the figure stood at 5,946. The current figure marks a 46% increase on last year and an 86% rise on 2023. By comparison, the 10,000 threshold was not passed until May 24 in 2024 and June 17 in 2023. As for the 11,000 mark, it was reached on June 6 last year, and June 23 the year before.
The latest crossings highlight the growing scale of the issue facing the UK government. Since the beginning of 2025, favourable weather conditions have created repeated opportunities for small boats to launch from northern France. On Thursday, the French-based humanitarian organisation Utopia 56 posted on social media platform X that “the day looks set to be busy again, the weather is calm, and hundreds of people will attempt to cross.”
The recent warm spell is part of a broader pattern of unusually good weather, with the Met Office confirming this week that April was the sunniest on record since 1910, and that May has begun with temperatures higher than average for the time of year.
Speaking to Times Radio on Tuesday, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper acknowledged that criminal gangs have been “taking advantage of the much higher number of calm weather days” to smuggle people across the Channel. “This situation cannot continue, where the impact of the weather has such a significant effect on our border security,” she said.
The timing of the latest figures is politically sensitive, arriving just as voters head to the polls for local elections — the first electoral test for Labour since Sir Keir Starmer became Prime Minister in July 2024. With immigration and border security remaining high on the public agenda, the surge in crossings has prompted fierce criticism from opposition parties.
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Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp criticised the government’s handling of the crisis, particularly Labour’s decision to scrap the controversial Rwanda deportation scheme introduced under the previous Conservative administration. “Keir Starmer has absolutely no control over who is coming into this country,” he wrote on X. “Labour’s claim that they are ‘smashing the gangs’ is a sick joke – everyone can see they have absolutely no plan to stop these crossings.”
Since taking office, the Labour government has pledged to crack down on people smuggling with a new enforcement strategy, promising to equip border agencies with enhanced powers akin to those used in counter-terror operations. However, with the number of crossings rising sharply, critics argue that the measures are not having a fast enough impact.
With the Channel crossing crisis showing no sign of abating, and calm weather likely to persist into the weekend, officials are bracing for further arrivals in the days ahead. For now, the debate over how to address the small boat issue is set to remain a major flashpoint in British politics.
