Migrants picked up at sea attempting to cross the English Channel from France, disembark from Border Force vessel 'Ranger' after it arrived at the Marina in Dover, south-east England, on May 21, 2025. BEN STANSALL / AFP
The second-highest annual number of migrants arrived on UK shores in small boats since records were started in 2018, government statistics confirmed on Thursday, January 1.
The tally comes as Brexit firebrand Nigel Farage's anti-immigration party Reform UK surges in popularity ahead of bellwether local elections in May. With Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer increasingly under pressure over the thorny issue, his interior minister Shabana Mahmood has proposed a drastic reduction in protections for refugees and the ending of automatic benefits for asylum seekers.
Home Office data showed that no small boats were detected on December 31, meaning a total of 41,472 migrants landed on England's southern coast in 2025 after making the perilous Channel crossing from northern France.
The record of 45,774 arrivals was recorded in 2022 under the last Conservative government. Former Tory prime minister Rishi Sunak vowed to "stop the boats" when he was in power. Ousted by Starmer in July 2024, he later said he regretted the slogan because it was too "stark" and "binary" and lacked sufficient context "for exactly how challenging" the goal was.
