Here are the eye-opening stats made plain by the Home Office. Since Keir Starmer ascended to No 10, his Labour government has presided over 1,111 small boat crossings (correct as of early February), bringing with them 65,703 migrants. It goes without saying these are only the detected crossings. Since the issue flared up in 2018, Starmer’s tally accounts for more than one in five of total small boat crossings, as well as more than one in three of the migrants to have crossed. It is higher than any other premier.
Statistics like these fan the immigration debate. Voters are wrong to think illegal migrants account for a significant portion of total entries to the United Kingdom, but perception is reality when it comes to voting intentions, and the small boats have a hold on the popular imagination. Most voters are already of the view that the crossings should be quelled, so news of further crossings provokes a sense that, once more, this country has lost control. It feeds into the narrative that the best thing to do is not reform the system, but shake it up, smash it up, start over: that the best thing to do is vote Reform.
The chemicals billionaire and owner of Manchester United Jim Ratcliffe made headlines yesterday (12 February) by saying in an interview with Sky News that the UK had been “colonised by immigrants”. His words caused outrage, but should not be dismissed as the eccentric beliefs of an eccentric entrepreneur. They are sentiments which garner some, though not total, sympathy in Britain.
Dominic Cummings recently published his findings from asking focus groups of voters about this very issue. The sentiments are similar in tone to those you saw in Britain before the Brexit referendum and the “get Brexit done” general election, or indeed that you saw in America in 2016 and 2024.
“Every service is at breaking point, I can’t see any plan to get out of this.”
“We keep voting to cut immigration, why won’t anyone listen and do it?!”
“It’s harder to get a GP appointment than tickets for One Direction back in the day, you call in and you’re 55 in the queue, then it’s cancelled, it’s insane.”
I reported in November that the vast majority of Britons think the rate of illegal immigration is too high. And nearly half (48 per cent) think legal immigration is also too high. Only 8 per cent say legal immigration is “too low”. The politics of “send them back” is no longer a fringe view. Research briefed to Downing Street named cuts to boat crossings as a change that would have one of the biggest impacts on the government’s poll ratings with the public, second only to a recovery in the health of the NHS.
It’s not a welcome question for Labour. But the party needs an answer.
[Further reading: England’s maternity scandal engulfs another NHS trust]
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