STARMER BOATS: PM holds record for most small boat crossings
More small boat migrants have arrived under Keir Starmer than any other Prime Minister.
More small boat migrants have arrived under Keir Starmer than any other Prime Minister.
Following the crossing of 219 migrants on Sunday 8th February, the number of Channel migrants who have broken into Britain under this Labour government totals 65,922 - surpassing the number that arrived under Boris Johnson
These are now officially the ‘Starmer Boats’.
The first recorded small boat crossing took place on 31st January 2018, when 7 migrants came across on 1 vessel. As the crisis enters its ninth year it is clear that the political class is no closer to ending the chaos.
As of 8th February 2026, 193,818 Channel migrants have arrived in Britain on 4980 boats.
The number of small boat crossings under each PM
Theresa May: 1,051
Boris Johnson: 65,811
Liz Truss: 10,397
Rishi Sunak: 50,637
Keir Starmer: 65,922
The average number of migrants arriving per day:
May: 1.949 per day
Johnson: 57.678 per day
Sunak: 81.804 per day.
Starmer: 112.6 per day
The number of migrants crossing the channel under Starmer after 585 daysin office is 1.3x greater than Rishi Sunak, 6.5x greater than Boris Johnson, and 112x greater than Theresa May
Labour’s failed policies
We have known for a while that the problem has been made worse by Keir Starmer. On his first full day as Prime Minister he declared that the Rwanda deportation plan was ‘dead’ but has failed to devise any serious plans of his own.
“Smash the gangs”
Starmer recently told the BBC journalist Laura Kuenssberg Starmer that “we need to shoot down this idea that slogans, easy answers, quick fixes, shortcuts are what fix the country”.
This is ironic, given he took office claiming that the solution to the small boat crisis is to “smash the gangs” - a catchphrase that was repeated ad infinitum until being seemingly dropped in the middle of last year.
There is no evidence that a single gang has been “smashed”, or indeed that the government even has a metric in place to gauge the success of such a policy.
‘One in, one out’
The ‘one in, one out’ deal with France has been no such thing. The plan was announced in July 2025 yet in the first 5 months of operation, there were over 16,000 small boat migrants arriving in the country, 193 migrants returned (roughly 1% of arrivals) and 195 migrants received from France.
Return hubs
In early 2025, Starmer and the Labour government were happy for the media to report that he planned to send failed asylum seekers to third countries (only once they had exploited every available loophole and right of appeal).
The government intended to negotiate these “return hubs” with Balkan countries - and Starmer held several high-profile summits with leaders of these countries in pursuit of this aim. However, as of December, it appears that only the small country of North Macedonia is prepared to even entertain the idea, with others publicly refusing to engage in the plans.
“Restoring Order and Control”
In November, the Labour government announced its intended reforms of the asylum system (pending a public consultation that already looks to have been swamped by left-wing activist groups).
It was billed as a tough clampdown on those entering the country illegally, but in reality is no such thing.
Those who break into Britain will still have the right to obtain settlement. Although those on so-called “core protection” will have to wait twenty years to have the indefinite right to remain, the government plans to create several work and study routes that will give illegal migrants quicker access to indefinite settled status. This is a far cry from plans introduced under the last Conservative government that would have, quite straightforwardly, prohibited any small boat migrant from ever having the right to stay in Britain.
The worsening crisis
As we have discussed in a previous piece, the Labour government has poured fire on the asylum crisis.
In the year ending September 2025, just 2,272 small boat migrants were returned, which is 8% fewer than the year previously (and even then, 71% of these were returned to Albania).
There are 7,000 more asylum seekers in hotels than when Keir Starmer took office.
In the year ending September 2025, there were a record 110,051 asylum claims, with the National Audit Office estimating that the British taxpayer was forced to fork out £4.9billion in 2024/25 on the asylum system.