A fleet of migrants’ boats crossed the Channel to Britain yesterday as traffickers made a mockery of the Government’s pledge to crack down on illegal crossings.
Traffickers used the weekend heatwave, low wind and calm seas to ferry migrants from France.
The small, crammed boats began to arrive in Dover before breakfast after being escorted by the French Navy from near Calais, Dunkirk, and Boulogne for mid-channel pick-ups by Britain’s Border Force.
From a chartered boat, the Mail monitored the crossings from 5am on the busiest day of migrant sailings for weeks – and found the traffickers back in business.
A north wind in May and early June brought their criminal trade to a near halt, prompting Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to say this month that his curbs on the boats was ‘starting to work’.
A fleet of migrants’ boats crossed the Channel to Britain yesterday as traffickers made a mockery of the Government’s pledge to crack down on illegal crossings
The small, crammed boats began to arrive in Dover before breakfast after being escorted by the French Navy from near Calais, Dunkirk, and Boulogne for mid-channel pick-ups by Britain’s Border Force
However, yesterday’s arrivals suggest that bad weather was the criminal gangs’ key obstacle.
Our skipper, a crab wholesaler, warned: ‘When the wind drops like this morning, these criminals spring into action with sailings. There is so much money to be made, and so many people willing to pay to reach the UK.’
There are an estimated 4,000 migrants in northern France, West Germany and the Netherlands waiting to reach the UK by sea as Europe copes with the highest number of arrivals on its southern shores since 2016.
Our Channel photos show how a pass-the-parcel operation ran for five hours, clearly in an agreement between France and Britain.
Watched by the Mail at 7.24am, the Border Force vessel Hurricane rendezvoused 12 miles off Dover with the French Navy ship Abeille Normandie, which had escorted a migrant boat with 50 on board from France. The Abeille Normandie let the small inflatable float over the international shipping line into English waters towards Hurricane. There was no attempt to turn the migrants back to France.
At 8.27am, Hurricane helped those on the migrant boat up to its deck. It arrived in Dover less than an hour later, where the men, women and at least one child were processed before being taken by bus to be fingerprinted at Manston, a former RAF camp in Kent.
They will be allocated rooms in one or more of the 400 hotels requisitioned by the Government for migrants at £6million a day.
By 2pm, French and UK coastguards told ships to alter course so the Border Force vessel Volunteer could go the wrong way up the main shipping lane to recover a migrant boat. ‘It’s mayhem,’ said our skipper. ‘There will be a collision. Migrant boats seem to get preference over Channel traffic.’
Yesterday’s arrivals continued through the day. By 8pm last night there had been 19 Border Force call outs to migrant boat ‘incidents’ in The Channel.
As each craft was carrying at least 30 people, paying around £3,000 a head for the trip, up to 600 are thought to have reached the UK.
Calm weather will continue in the Channel until Wednesday, when northerly winds are due. The Tories’ Illegal Migration Bill, which is going through the Lords, is designed to make it easier to refuse entry for illegal migrants.
The Home Office predicts 85,000 could come this year – almost double the 45,000 in 2022.
But bad weather with a northerly wind may be the best hope for Mr Sunak to achieve his pledge of ‘stopping the boats’ this summer.
The number of Albanians crossing the Channel has dropped after TikTok began automatically blocking posts containing key words and videos that advertise boat crossings, The Times reported last night.
Just 122 Albanians have arrived since the rules changed in March, compared to nearly 2,000 over the same period in 2022.
