Number of people crossing Channel on small boats since Labour took office likely to pass 50,000 as Keir Starmer comes under pressure – UK politics live | UK news
Published: 2025-08-12 09:45:49 | Views: 9
Test for Labour as figures likely to show over 50,000 migrants have crossed Channel since last July
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of UK politics.
The number of people who have crossed the Channel on small boats since Labour took office last summer will probably pass 50,000 later today when official figures are released.
Official figures from Monday suggested 49,797 had crossed in small boats from northern France since 5 July 2024.
The prime minister, Keir Starmer, is under considerable pressure to reduce the number of people arriving on small boats across the Channel, with his promise to “smash the gangs” clearly not working,
The government has set out its plan to close asylum hotels by the end of the parliament and Starmer announced a “one in, one out” returns deal with France last month.
But there is a rising political urgency around the issue as Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party continues to lead polls after attacks on Labour for failing to curb irregular migration.
People arriving on small boats at record high
Reform politicians have recently been linking sexual offences to immigration as part of the party’s “Britain is lawless” campaign, full of disputed claims.
Kemi Badenoch suggested yesterday that asylum seekers should be housed in camps which could be policed, instead of in hotels, as they currently are. We should get more detail about this proposal later today. Here is what else is on the agenda:
09.30am: New welfare statistics, including the number of universal credit claimants, will be published by the Department for Work and Pensions.
10.45am:The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is likely to face questions from journalists about the latest ONS employment data when she speaks to regional media.
The education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, will be speaking to regional media and LBC today.
Key events
Reform MP for Runcorn and Helsby, Sarah Pochin, told journalists yesterday that women are at risk of sexual assault and rape from small boats migrants.
During a press conference for Women for Reform, she accused illegal migrants from “predominantly Muslim” countries of having a “medieval view of women’s rights fundamentally alien to our own western values”.
The education minister, Jacqui Smith, told LBC this morning that Reform is wrong to single out small boat migrants as a threat to women’s safety.
Smith, a former home secretary, said:
No I don’t think they’re right to single those people out. They’re a problem for all the reasons that we’ve talked about. But I think that there are unfortunately … too many largely men who are responsible for violence against women, of all types.
That’s why we need to take the sort of action that this government is taking, and that’s why I hope Reform will change their position and support us in the tough legislation that we’re bringing forward to tackle that violence.
And also, of course, to ensure that we have more police on our streets, which we’re beginning to deliver, reinvigorating our neighbourhood policing teams, making sure we have the criminal justice system that will be on the side of victims and help to reduce this problem.
As we mentioned in the opening post, Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative party leader, suggested on a walkabout in Essex yesterday that “camps” should be set up for asylum seekers while their applications to remain in the UK are assessed.
Badenoch, who met anti-migrant protesters and local people in Epping high street on Monday, did not say how this would work in practice.
Kemi Badenoch doing media interviews while on a walkabout in Epping, Essex on 11 August 2025. Photograph: Lucy North/PA
Matt Vickers, the shadow Home Office minister, was asked about Badenoch’s comments on Sky News this morning.
He said the only way to solve the problem is to “end the pull factors” attracting people to come to Britain illegally and to ensure those who do arrive illegally are not allowed to stay.
Vickers said:
Kemi went down to Epping. She met the families, the community, people who are affected by these people, who daren’t send their kids down the park or let them play in the street.
Women who were worried about going home late at night in the dark, people who are really affected by these huge groups of lone men hanging around town centres in public spaces. She’s also seen the impact on businesses.
If you take away those 300 hotel rooms, the businesses that rely on that tourism all of a sudden do not have any business.
Test for Labour as figures likely to show over 50,000 migrants have crossed Channel since last July
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of UK politics.
The number of people who have crossed the Channel on small boats since Labour took office last summer will probably pass 50,000 later today when official figures are released.
Official figures from Monday suggested 49,797 had crossed in small boats from northern France since 5 July 2024.
The prime minister, Keir Starmer, is under considerable pressure to reduce the number of people arriving on small boats across the Channel, with his promise to “smash the gangs” clearly not working,
The government has set out its plan to close asylum hotels by the end of the parliament and Starmer announced a “one in, one out” returns deal with France last month.
But there is a rising political urgency around the issue as Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party continues to lead polls after attacks on Labour for failing to curb irregular migration.
People arriving on small boats at record high
Reform politicians have recently been linking sexual offences to immigration as part of the party’s “Britain is lawless” campaign, full of disputed claims.
Kemi Badenoch suggested yesterday that asylum seekers should be housed in camps which could be policed, instead of in hotels, as they currently are. We should get more detail about this proposal later today. Here is what else is on the agenda:
09.30am: New welfare statistics, including the number of universal credit claimants, will be published by the Department for Work and Pensions.
10.45am:The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is likely to face questions from journalists about the latest ONS employment data when she speaks to regional media.
The education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, will be speaking to regional media and LBC today.
