𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

More than 52,000 small boat migrants have crossed the Channel since last year’s General Election, including 29,000 so far in 2025. All major parties say they have plans to get illegal immigration under control.

Legal migration levels are also high. An estimated 948,000 people came to the UK expecting to stay at least a year in 2024, according to provisional figures from the Office for National Statistics, while 517,000 people left the country. It means net migration is lower than in 2023, but Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said he wants to get the figure down further.

At the same time, a record 111,000 asylum applications were made to the UK during the year to June.

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Some 600,000 asylum seekers could be deported in the first parliament of a Reform UK government, party leader Nigel Farage has indicated.

Answering a media question on the parameters of the mass deportation plans, Mr Farage said: “How far back you go with this is the difficulty, and I accept that.”

Pointing to queries about what would happen to children, he added: “I’m not standing here telling you all of this is easy, all of this is straightforward.

“And we had of course with the Windrush row, we had a situation there where people who’d come 50, 60, in fact nearly 70 years ago, had faulty paperwork. So there is an exercise of common sense that has to come in here.”

Turning to senior Reform UK figure Zia Yusuf, Mr Farage said: “But do we realistically think, Zia, we can deport five, 600,000 people in the lifetime of the first parliament?”

Mr Yusuf replied: “Totally.”

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: “Nigel Farage is simply reheating and recycling plans that the Conservatives have already announced.

“Earlier this year, we introduced and tabled votes on our Deportation Bill in Parliament, detailing how we would disapply the Human Rights Act from all immigration matters, and deport every illegal immigrant on arrival.

“Months later, Reform have not done the important work necessary to get a grip on the immigration crisis and instead have produced a copy and paste of our proposals.

“Only Kemi Badenoch and the Conservatives are doing the real work needed to end this scourge – with further, detailed plans to be announced shortly.”

Some 659 migrants arrived in the UK on Monday after crossing the English Channel, according to figures from the Home Office.

The cumulative number of arrivals in 2025 now stands at a provisional total of 28,947.

This is 50% higher than at the same point last year, when the total stood at 19,294, and 47% higher than at this stage in 2023, when the total was 19,741.

There were nine boats that arrived on Monday, which suggests an average of around 73 people per boat.

Some 52,189 migrants have arrived in the UK using this route since the 2024 general election.

The Prime Minister disagrees with Mr Farage that Britain is on the precipice of civil disorder over unhappiness about small boat migrants, Downing Street has said.

No 10 said the Government was setting out “serious” solutions to the issue, not gimmicks.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “It makes him angry frankly, because it’s unfair on ordinary working people who pay the price from the cost of hotels to our public services struggling under the strain.

“That’s why we’re taking the action we are, to recognise the strength of feeling about this. The pressure that it puts on public services and that’s why we’re taking serious practical action to address this issue, not just returning back to the old gimmicks, the old solutions that failed to deal with this.”

Sir Keir’s spokesman was asked whether he agreed with Reform UK’s leader who told an event in Oxford that he believed the country was at risk of civil disorder.

He said: “No, and I think what the Prime Minister is focused on is dealing with the concerns that people have. People have understandably have felt like their living standards have stagnated over the last 15 years, and that’s why growing the economy and raising living standards is the Government’s number one priority.”