EXCLUSIVE: The Prime Minister has been criticised for his approach to stopping small boat crossings.
Migrants have been crossing the English Channel from France. (Image: Getty)
Sir Keir Starmer has been slammed over his efforts to stop small boats crossing the English Channel after the Home Office said migrants “could” be deported. Officials said on X alongside pictures of individuals being processed: “Anyone arriving illegally in the UK by small boat could face removal or deportation.”
New Reform UK MP, Robert Jenrick, told The Express: “The boats will only stop when illegal migrants know they will be deported. Right now, the only certainty is they’ll be put up in a hotel at taxpayer expense. Only Nigel Farage has the conviction to detain and deport those arriving illegally.”
Robert Bates, Research Director at the Centre for Migration Control, said: “The removal of small boat migrants has fallen under Labour; there are more illegal migrants in hotels, and last year saw a record number of asylum claims. Starmer’s handling of the small boats crisis has been an absolute disaster for this country.
“This Government has so far spent £40million bribing illegal migrants to leave the country and the number of deportations are way down on where they were just a decade ago.”
£37,779,583 was spent on 11,817 Voluntary Assisted Returns (VARS) between July 2024 and September 2025, research carried out by the CMC and GB News suggests.
This cost £3,197 per return.
There is no guarantee that the number of small boat crossings will fall by this time next year, the Home Secretary said today.
Shabana Mahmood told MPs that the number of crossings is “unacceptable”, but she said there is no “silver bullet” and the problem needs “long-term, careful, painful work” to resolve.
More than 65,000 migrants have arrived in the UK after crossing the English Channel since Sir Keir Starmer became Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister announced during his trip to China that he had negotiated a deal with the Chinese authorities to prevent boat motors made in the country from falling into the hands of people smugglers.
The Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said today there is no ‘silver bullet’ to stop small boats (Image: Getty)
A Home Office crackdown on adverts telling migrants how to circumvent immigration checks came into force earlier this week.
Ms Mahmood appeared before the Home Affairs Committee on Wednesday, where she was asked by Liberal Democrat MP Ben Maguire about a 13% increase in crossings last year, along with an asylum “backlog” of tens of thousands, and when she expected numbers to come down.
It was reported in December that migrants could be deported to North Macedonia in an attempt to discourage people from trying to cross the Channel.
Last month, it was revealed that small boat arrivals hit a three-year high.
The Government admitted that a total of 41,472 migrants made the perilous crossing in 2025 – a 13% rise on the 36,566 in 2024.
A total of 41,472 migrants arrived in the UK in 2025 after crossing the English Channel – the second-highest annual figure on record.
