Some 83,279 people have arrived in small boats since Labour won power, compared with 73,660 regular soldiers in the British Army. This week brought the highest daily total of 2026 and the first unchallenged beach landings in more than a year.
More migrants have reached Britain in small boats since the general election than there are regular soldiers in the British Army.
Some 781 people made the crossing on Wednesday, in 10 boats, the highest single-day total of 2026, according to Home Office figures. It pushed the total since the general election to 83,279. The latest Ministry of Defence quarterly statistics put the regular Army at 73,660 personnel.
Wednesday’s tally beat the previous high for this year, the 752 who arrived on July 29. In all, 1,085 people reached Britain in the first three days of this week. There were further arrivals yesterday, though the numbers have yet to be officially confirmed. Even so, Wednesday remained well short of the record 1,305 who crossed in a single day in September 2022.
Some 18,565 people have crossed this year, 42 per cent fewer than at the same point in 2025, when 32,188 had arrived, according to official figures.
The Conservatives seized on the milestone. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: ‘Labour has let an entire army-sized population cross the Channel illegally. More people have arrived in small boats than we have soldiers defending Britain. That is completely bonkers.’
He added: ‘Labour has lost control of our borders and seems utterly incapable of getting it back. The Conservative plan is to end hotels and benefits for illegal immigrants and instead deport them.’
The comparison does not mark a new peak in the rate of crossings. Around 46,000 people arrived in small boats in 2022 alone, and the roughly 33,000 arrivals in the year to June 2026 are close to the 31,000 recorded in the year to June 2024, the last full year before the election, according to the House of Commons Library’s analysis of Home Office data. The Migration Observatory at Oxford University has noted that arrivals over the 12 months to September were at their lowest level since 2021.
The milestone came in the same week that two boats reached the Kent coast without being intercepted by Border Force. One landed at Folkestone on Monday, the other at Samphire Hoe, near Dover, on Tuesday. They were the first uncontrolled landings officially recorded since September 6 last year.
The second, carrying up to 30 people, reached the beach before police arrived. Twenty-one of those aboard were detained and taken to a Home Office facility, where they will be processed ahead of lodging asylum claims. Only four uncontrolled landings have been recorded since the Home Office began keeping data in 2023.
Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, has ordered an urgent review by Border Security Command into how the boats made it across unchallenged. The review comes three weeks after Mahmood said on September 2: ‘We are boosting officer numbers to record highs to crack down on small boat launches and the gangs behind them. This work is bearing fruit.’
Lucy Powell, the Education Secretary and Labour’s deputy leader, conceded there was no ‘switch’ that could stop the boats. She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘You can’t stop everything all of the time. Of course it’s a concern. That’s why the Home Secretary has demanded and ordered this urgent review, because this is not what we want to see. This is not acceptable.’
On Radio Kent she added: ‘If we had a switch that we could switch tomorrow to stop all small boats, we would switch it.’
Border Force staff say beach landings are not the rarity the official record suggests. Lucy Moreton, of the Immigration Service Union, said boats were ‘definitely’ arriving undetected along the south coast.
‘It’s absolutely, definitely happening. If no one sees them, no one sees them,’ she said. ‘But we know that we’ve had abandoned vessels, we’ve had reports of uncontrolled landings all the way down to Falmouth.’
She accused the Home Office of operating on the basis: ‘If we don’t look for it, we don’t know it’s happening. We don’t know it’s happening, we don’t have to deal with it.’
Tony Smith, a former director general of Border Force, said the whole of the south coast should be monitored, not just the narrowest section of the Channel around Dover. ‘We’ve got technology, radar and drones and surveillance, but clearly it didn’t work on this particular occasion,’ he said.
Asked why migrants would aim for a beach rather than be picked up at sea and processed, he said some may have wanted to ‘evade capture’ and avoid biometric checks that could flag a criminal record or a previous illegal arrival.
Shabana Mahmood said the gangs had adopted new tactics, launching boats from much further west along the French coast in response to mounting pressure from law enforcement. One of the boats counted on Wednesday had set out from Normandy and spent more than 33 hours at sea.
A Government spokesman said: ‘Our progress this year in tackling small boats is indisputable, with crossings down by 42 per cent and the lowest recorded over the summer months since 2020. But this week’s events show that while the peaks we are seeing are far below those of previous years, we need to push further and harder in order to eradicate this vile trade.’
Ben Habib, Chairman of Great British PAC, was more critical:
„A government’s primary duty is the security of the country. That in turn means their duty is to enforce borders. No borders means no country. The UK is being extinguished“
Since the election, 83,279 people have crossed the Channel in small boats. The regular British Army has 73,660 personnel.
