A record 107 small boat migrants have reached Britain in just one dinghy, confounding Labour’s pledge to ‘smash the gangs’.
Images from the port of Dover this morning showed human traffickers have begun to deploy a new, longer type of inflatable.
The dinghy – which can barely be described as a ‘small boat’ – was recovered in the Channel and taken to Dover, where it was being examined by Border Force and law enforcement, GB News reported.
It brought 107 migrants to Britain overnight, smashing the previous record of 96 people aboard one inflatable.
The appearance of the larger type of dinghy further undermines Labour’s decision to concentrate on law enforcement responses to ‘smash the gangs’.
Keir Starmer scrapped the previous Conservative government’s Rwanda asylum scheme as one of his first acts in office, just as it was finally ready to get off the ground.
The Rwanda scheme was designed to make crossing the Channel pointless, because migrants would be sent to Rwanda to claim asylum there instead of here.
On Monday alone there were 474 Channel arrivals, pushing the total past 50,000 since Labour came to power.
There were thought to have been at least 400 more yesterday but official numbers have not yet been confirmed by the Home Office.
Small boat arrivals so far this year are up 47 per cent on the same period last year, hitting record levels of more than 27,000.
The use of bigger migrant boats will be of deep concern to British officials, who have ploughed significant resources into attempts to disrupt traffickers’ supplies.
One maritime security source told GB News: ‘This is highly alarming.
‘It looks like the smuggling gangs have specified larger boats, which we know are designed and built in back street factories in China.
‘Bigger boats mean bigger numbers of arrivals, at a time when we’re already seeing record numbers crossing from France.
‘If we are witnessing the advent of a new, larger migrant boat, this is the worst possible news for those attempting to smash the gangs.’
Last month Labour’s Border Security Commander Martin Hewitt claimed a seizure of 25 dinghies in Bulgaria, in an operation involving Britain’s National Crime Agency, was a ‘significant step forward in our joint work to disrupt the supply chain fuelling these dangerous small boat crossings’.
Earlier this week large groups of migrants were seen sprinting into the surf off Gravelines beach, between Calais and Dunkirk, in a bid to get aboard a boat to Britain.
From first light, as French police stood and watched and a navy vessel patrolled off the coast, scores waded into the water to clamber onto a taxi boat that appeared just off shore.
The Government’s much trumpeted ‘returns deal’ with France appears to have done little to deter those determined to get to Britain, with at least 1,500 arrivals in the week since the ‘one in, one out’ scheme launched.
Former Labour Home Secretary Baroness Jacqui Smith – now an education, women and equalities minister under Sir Keir – yesterday blamed the Conservatives for the activity of smuggling gangs on the Continent.
‘It is a completely legitimate claim to say that that is because what is happening is the result of the last government that chose to focus on gimmicks with the Rwanda scheme,’ she said.
Asked on Sky News if the crossings were not Labour’s fault, Lady Smith went on: ‘We are taking responsibility. I don’t believe it is our fault that it was enabled to take root in the way in which it has done by a government who failed to do what was necessary at that point.
‘The last government enabled this hideous criminal activity to really get its roots into across Europe.
‘There was a lengthy period, at the time, in which the criminal gangs, the criminal masterminds, the organised crime who are behind this, had the opportunity to have this operation set up and really embedded.
‘And that’s the task that this Government now has, to deconstruct that.’
But her attempt to evade responsibility was met with incredulity.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: ‘The government has now confirmed that 50,000 illegal immigrants have crossed the Channel in Labour’s short time in power, the worst crisis in our history.
‘Labour has surrendered our borders, and the consequences are being felt in our communities, from rising crime to shocking cases of rape and sexual assault by recent arrivals.
‘Labour has scrapped Conservative deterrents and created the conditions for chaos, leaving the British people to foot the bill.’
