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The number of irregular migrants arriving in the UK by small boats jumped by 13 per cent in 2025 to more than 41,000, heaping pressure on Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s vow to “smash the gangs” trafficking people from France.
The annual total of 41,472, barring any late revisions to Home Office data for the final days of last year, is the second-highest on record, surpassed only in 2022 when almost 46,000 people crossed the English Channel.
Irregular migration has surged up the political agenda in recent months, propelling Nigel Farage’s populist Reform UK party to the top of national opinion polls and intensifying scrutiny of Labour’s attempts to toughen its stance on immigration and crack down on people smugglers.
Net migration fell sharply in the year to June 2025 since tougher rules on pay came into force. But since her appointment as home secretary in September, and in a push to fend off Reform, Shabana Mahmood has said the government wants to reduce it further.
These include making asylum status temporary for many people and ending the automatic right to housing and financial support, and increasing the amount of time lower earners will need to wait to be eligible for British citizenship.
In October, she warned that the UK had lost control of its borders and said a “failure to bring order” was “eroding trust not just in us as political leaders but in the credibility of the state itself”.
Her predecessor, Yvette Cooper, who is now foreign secretary, suspended applications from asylum seekers for family reunions, saying small boat gangs were using the prospect to entice people to attempt the dangerous Channel crossing.
The Home Office said in a statement that the number of small boat crossings was “shameful” and that “the British people deserve better”.
“The home secretary has announced the most sweeping reforms to tackle illegal migration in decades, removing the incentives that bring illegal migrants to the UK and scaling up the return of those with no right to be here,” it added.
Ministers hope to lower the number of small boat crossings in 2026 and have highlighted that the government has removed 50,000 illegal migrants since it won power in July 2024, including people overstaying visas.
The government has also strengthened co-operation with Germany, which is introducing a law to make it punishable by up to 10 years in jail to assist people-smuggling operations, such as storing small boats and engines before transporting them to France.
Last summer Starmer hailed a “one-in-one out” agreement with French President Emmanuel Macron, where small boat arrivals could be sent back to France in exchange for an asylum seeker with a higher chance of making a successful claim in the UK.
But the deal has resulted in only about 200 returns to France so far, while the government was embarrassed after a number of people made a second small boat crossing after being sent back by the UK.
Small boat crossings normally decline in the winter months due to bad weather, but significant numbers can still attempt the journey. About 36,600 people arrived in the UK by small boat in 2024.
No small boat crossings were attempted in the final week of 2025, the Home Office confirmed, but there were 23 boat crossings in the week ending December 21 that brought 1,374 irregular migrants from France.
