Farage Declares ‘Invasion’ as 44,000 Illegal Boat Migrants Land in Britain This Year

A group of people thought to be migrants wait to be processed after being brought in to Do
Gareth Fuller/PA Images via Getty Images
Kurt Zindulka

Brexit leader Nigel Farage doubled down on the assertion that the migrant crisis in the English Channel is an invasion as it was revealed that over 44,000 illegals have arrived by boat on British shores this year alone.

According to analysis from GB News of Ministry of Defence figures, over 44,000 illegal migrants have been recorded as reaching the UK after travelling by small rubber boats across the English Channel from France after approximately 200 more people made the journey on Thursday. This comes after 426 travelling in 8 separate boats were brought ashore on Wednesday, which took the total to 43,874.

In comparison, the total number of illegal landings for the entirety of 2021 stood at 28,526, 8,466 in 2020, 1,843 in 2019, and just 299 in 2018.

In response to the new record, Brexiteer Nigel Farage said: “GB News reports that 44,000 illegal migrants have now crossed the English Channel. Invasion!”

The post was in reference to widely criticised comments from Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who said in the House of Commons last month: “The British people deserve to know which party is serious about stopping the invasion on our southern coast and which party is not.”

While the Home Secretary herself might be “serious” about stopping the boat migrant crisis, it remains to be seen if the government of Rishi Sunak, which she serves, is as well. Indeed, Braverman has backed the idea of removing the UK from the ECHR (European Court of Human Rights), which intervened to stop a flight of several illegal migrants from being removed from the country to Rwanda to have their asylum claims processed, yet Sunak has so far refused to commit to freeing the UK from the organisation.

Indeed, rumours circulating Westminster that the Sunak government intends to bring closer to Brussels, rather than continue the Brexit process of withdrawing from European institutions, suggests he never may do so.

So far, Sunak’s only major move to tackle illegal immigration has been to send another £63 million to the French to supposedly step up patrols of their coastline. This comes on top of the hundreds of millions already sent to the safe European country to prevent illegals from setting sail towards Britain. There has also been no indication that the government is close to coming to an agreement on migrant returns with Paris.

The failures by the government to tackle illegal immigration — and indeed to reduce the even more massive waves of legal migration — have seen the public lose faith in the Conservative Party in its ability to “take back control” of the country’s borders, with nearly nine in ten (87 per cent) saying that they believe the government has performed poorly in terms of immigration.

This has left an opening on the political right, with the Reform UK party surging in recent polling to nearly ten per cent in the polls, which although not nearly enough to win power outright in Westminster, could be enough to play spoiler and oust the Conservative Party from power. On Wednesday, a poll from YouGov confirmed that the support for the rebranded Brexit Party was holding strong at nine per cent.

Reform UK leader Richard Tice said in a message to the Tory government: ‘The more you betray Brexit, the more you tax working people, the more legal [and] illegal immigration you allow, the less people will vote for you and more [will] vote for ⁦[the] Reform Party.”

Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka

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