Has the UK government’s strategy on small boat crossings been effective?

As the number of migrants crossing the Channel is down by 43%, have ministers cracked the problem? The headline figures show that small boats crossing the Channel are down by 43% compared with January to mid-July 2025 – from 21,690 people who crossed last year to 12,469 over the same period this year. Since Andy Burnham came to power on 20 July, however, there has been a small increase on the same period last year. Between 20 July and 2 August 2025 1,962 people crossed the Channel in small boats. Over the same period this year more than 2,000 have crossed. Burnham visited Dover’s joint command room on Sunday where small boat movements across the Channel are tracked using surveillance drones. He said the government would be “relentless” in stopping the boats and would “bring back that control”. Have ministers finally cracked a political problem that has dogged successive prime ministers for almost a decade and will Burnham’s pledges be fulfilled? There is no doubt that the government initiatives to “stop the boats” have disrupted the business model of people smugglers in northern France. But it has certainly not destroyed it. In the past week more than 1,000 people