Around 36,000 people crossed the English Channel in small boats in the year ending 31 May 2026. Yes, that figure is down around 13 percent on the year before. But let us be honest about what that really means: it is still tens of thousands of people arriving illegally, on inflatable boats, choosing which country processes their claim. A modest dip from a record does not amount to control. It amounts to a slightly smaller crisis.

Labour promised to "smash the gangs." The gangs are still in business. In fact, investigations this year found smugglers charging as little as 1,500 euros a head — far cheaper than before. When the price of breaking into Britain falls, you do not have a deterrent. You have a sale.

The France Deal Was Sold as the Answer

The much-trumpeted UK-France returns treaty was supposed to break the model. Cross the Channel, the theory went, and you risk being sent straight back. The pilot scheme allows adults whose claims are ruled inadmissible to be returned to France. It sounds tough. The numbers tell a different story.

A pilot that returns a trickle while tens of thousands arrive is not a solution — it is a press release. The people smugglers know the difference between a genuine deterrent and a gesture. So do the migrants paying them. As long as the overwhelming majority who cross are not returned, the boats will keep coming, because the calculation that drives them has not changed.

Tinkering With the Rules Is Not Border Control

Ministers point to a rule change for those who claimed asylum on or after 2 March 2026 as evidence of action. But shuffling the paperwork around the edges does nothing about the fundamental problem: people are entering the country illegally and we are not removing them quickly and reliably. A border you cannot enforce is not a border. It is a suggestion.

Every illegal crossing also undermines the people who do it properly — those who apply, wait, pay the fees and follow the law. What message does it send to them when arriving by dinghy works just as well? Fairness demands that the law mean something.

The Hotel Bill Keeps Rising

And the public keeps paying. Tens of thousands of new arrivals must be housed, fed and processed, much of it on the taxpayer's tab, while the asylum backlog drags on for years. That is money that could fund GP appointments, police on the beat or tax cuts for working families. Instead it is spent managing a crisis the government refuses to grip.

What Reform UK Would Do

Reform UK would treat illegal entry as exactly that. Anyone arriving illegally by small boat would be detained and swiftly removed — not housed in hotels for years. We would establish that crossing the Channel illegally leads to removal, every time, because only a genuine and consistent deterrent breaks the smugglers' business model.

We would process genuine claims quickly and fairly, and we would back our Border Force and police to do their jobs. Controlled immigration is not cruelty. It is the basic duty of any serious government — a duty Labour is plainly failing to meet.