More Illegal Boat Migrants Landed in Britain in June Than Whole of 2019

DOVER, ENGLAND - JUNE 11: Inflatable dinghies used by migrants to cross the channel from F
Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Kurt Zindulka

More illegal boat migrants landed on British soil in the month of June than were recorded during the entire year of 2019, with over 2,000 brought ashore this month, alone.

Despite the spate of storms impacting Europe and Britain in the past week, another 107 migrants arrived on Monday in four boats and a further 150 illegals landed on Tuesday. This is in addition to the 315 which came over the weekend.

The latest crossings of the English Channel have brought the total number of illegal landings in June to over 2,000, a new monthly record according to analysis from the BBC. Put into context, in all of 2019, only 1,890 boat migrants were recorded to have reached the UK.

June also outpaced the previous monthly record, which was set in September of last year, when 1,951 made the perilous journey from France.

The new record comes as Home Secretary Priti Patel is set to finally introduce legislation to fix the UK’s “broken” immigration system.

Part of the New Plan for Immigration will reportedly introduce a new legal route for the British government to export asylum seekers to third countries — possibly in partnership with the Kingdom of Denmark — rather than processing their asylum applications domestically in the UK.

The proposal has been met with anger from the political left and scepticism from the right, with Brexit leader Nigel Farage declaring that an offshore migrant centre “will never happen”.

While Home Secretary Priti Patel has consistently promised reforms to stem the flow of illegal migration, the crisis has only continued to grow.

Patel’s post-Brexit immigration reform would only permit those migrants who enter the country through official means to apply for asylum status.

The proposed border reforms would also seek to impose life sentences for people smugglers assisting migrants to enter the country illegally.

However, there has been no agreement reached with any European Union nation, including France, as to the return of failed asylum seekers following the UK’s departure from the bloc in January.

Should the waves of illegal migration continue at the current pace — which is currently double that of last years’ record numbers — estimates have forecasted that some 20,000 boat migrants will reach the UK by the end of the year.

Nigel Farage has argued that the Home Office must simply start sending the boats back to France, rather than having the British Border Force acting as a “taxi service” for illegals who are often escorted into the UK’s territorial waters by the French Navy.

The Brexit leader’s ‘send back the boats’ approach was seconded by the Conservative MP for Dover Natalie Elphicke who said that there needs to be tougher action taken to stop “thousands and thousands of migrants being brought into Dover as they are right now.”

“These dangerous crossings will only come to end when migrants and traffickers alike know that they can’t break into Britain in this way,” she said.

“That means doing much more to stop the boats leaving France in the first place, turning boats around wherever they are in the Channel, taking them back to France, and returning illegal entrants,” the Conservative MP added.

Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka

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