Andy Burnham says he is stopping the boats (Image: Getty)
Andy Burnham would like us to believe the small boats crisis is under control. Earlier this month, he said that co-operation between the UK and France “has helped us reduce summer small boat crossings to a seven-year low”.
There are lots of facts and figures that can be thrown around. However, the idea that the boats have stopped or been significantly reduced in number is simply not true.
Official figures show that in the year ending June 2026, the number of people caught arriving in a dinghy was about 33,000. That’s down from 43,000 in the 12 months to June 2025. But it’s actually higher than the figure for the 12 months to June 2024 – the final year of the last Conservative government – which was 31,000.
Get the latest politics news – straight from our team in Westminster and more
Invalid email
You agree you are 18 or over. We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and third parties based on our knowledge of you. You can unsubscribe at any time. More Info.
In other words, the problem is worse than it was when Labour first came to power under Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership.
And that’s despite the massive funding of more than £1billion that the UK has handed to France to help them improve border security. We gave £476million between 2023 and 2026, and have promised another £662million between 2026 and 2029.
We’ve seen this week why simply putting more police on the border doesn’t work. We’ve made it harder to arrive on a small boat in Dover, so the people smugglers are sending their customers to Portsmouth instead.
Behind the statistics, the small boat crisis is having a real impact on people’s lives.
People see a local hotel filled with asylum seekers. They discover migrants crammed into local flats or houses, which become houses in multiple occupation (HMOs). And given that the small boat migrants are predominantly young men, having large numbers milling around in communities with nothing to do is bound to lead to concerns about safety.
There is no excuse for some of the scenes we have witnessed in Portsmouth in recent days. Nobody wants to see mob rule on our streets. We don’t want crowds turning up in balaclavas. That’s only going to make local people feel even more unsafe.
It’s not the job of angry members of the public to try to prevent small boats from arriving on our shores. They should go home. But realistically, these sorts of protests only become more likely if people don’t have faith in the authorities to sort out the problem themselves.
And the way to stop the boats ultimately is to make it clear to anyone tempted to get a dinghy that they won’t get a home or benefits – all they’ll get is a ticket home.
As long as they are allowed to stay, the boats will keep on coming. If Mr Burnham really wants to stop the boats, he needs to remove people who come to our shores illegally.