UK channel crossings top 30,000 in 2024

THE number of undocumented migrants arriving in Britain after crossing the Channel in small boats this year has surpassed 30,000, provisional statistics showed Thursday (31).

The figures come as the new Labour government -- like its Tory predecessor -- struggles to reduce the arrivals despite prime minister Keir Starmer's pre-election pledge to "smash" the criminal gangs facilitating them.

Some 30,431 migrants have arrived on the shores of southeast England after crossing from northern France in 2024, according to the interior ministry.

It follows 564 people arriving on 12 boats on Wednesday (30), taking the tally for October so far to nearly 5,200 -- one of the highest monthly totals on record.

Last year saw nearly 30,000 arrivals, down on the record 45,774 who made the perilous journey across one of the world's busiest shipping lanes in 2022.

Stopping them was a key issue in Britain's July general election.

Brexit figurehead Nigel Farage's anti-immigration Reform UK party campaigned almost exclusively on the issue and won roughly four million votes -- an unprecedented haul for a far-right party.

Within days of taking power, Starmer scrapped the Tories' controversial scheme to send migrants to holding centres in Rwanda, pledged to dismantle the operations of the people smugglers.

A former police chief, Martin Hewitt, has been appointed to lead the UK's new Border Security Command, which will focus on the issue.

Dozens of migrants have died attempting to reach British shores in overloaded rubber dinghies this year, including on Wednesday.

(AFP)