Over 40,000 Boat Migrants Have Landed in Britain So Far this Year

TOPSHOT - Migrants carry a smuggling boat on their shoulders as they prepare to embark on
SAMEER AL-DOUMY/AFP via Getty Images
Peter Caddle

More than 40,000 boat migrants have now arrived in Britain this year, with nearly 1,000 arriving on Saturday, alone.

Figures released by the UK government have revealed that over 40,000 migrants have now arrived in Britain so far this calendar year, with Saturday marking the arrival of just short of 1,000 more would-be asylum seekers into the country.

Marking an increase of over 10,000 compared to last year’s final total of 28,561, the crisis shows no sign of slowing down despite the significant pressure it is currently putting on British infrastructure.

According to a report by broadcaster Sky News, the 972 individuals who are described by the government as arriving on Saturday have seen the number of boat migrants surge to 40,885 for this calendar year.

The data published by the UK Ministry of Defence on Sunday describes the nearly 1,000 migrants as arriving on 22 separate small boats, averaging out at just over 44 migrants per boat.

Commenting on the crisis, the UK’s immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, decried boat migrants as abusing the historic generosity of Britain, which has so far failed to deport a meaningful number of the migrants from the island.

“My own children are the great-grandchildren of Holocaust survivors,” the minister wrote in an op-ed published on Saturday in The Telegraph. “Time and again, the UK has opened its doors to those facing their darkest hour.”

“However, this generosity is being abused by migrants skipping the queue in small boat crossings and seriously overwhelming our immigration system,” he continued, decrying the “community tensions” the crisis was now causing in the locations where the migrants are arriving.

“For too long, these communities’ cries for help have been left unanswered by politicians and dismissed outright by self-righteous liberals blissfully unaffected by it all,” he went on to say, before demanding various factors attracting migrants to Britain, including the fact that a number are housed in luxury hotels, be curtailed.

While promising in the article that the government will do more to curb immigration, there remains significant reasons to be doubtful, with the last three successive Tory party governments failing to get a handle on both legal and illegal arrivals.

For once though, there might just be light at the end of the tunnel, with The Telegraph reporting that authorities in both the UK and France are now very close to agreeing a deal to further crack down on small boat crossings.

According to the publication, a deal which could see France significantly increase its policing of the migrant route could be agreed as early as Monday.

Under the predicted agreement, the UK will pay France around £60 million (~$71 million) — on top of the hundreds of millions Britain has already sent — to increase its beach patrols, something that is hoped will reduce the number of migrants able to launch their small boats used to reach Britain.

France has also reportedly agreed to establish a “joint control centre” for the crisis in the country where UK government officials will work alongside French authorities to help curtail the crisis.

Joint patrols made up of both French and UK authorities however appear to remain out of the question, with a previous open letter to the French government sent by then-PM Boris Johnson resulting in a diplomatic crisis between the two nations, meaning that any pushback of the migrant boats is still unlikely.

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