Burnham vows relentless crackdown on Channel crossings, calls for safe routes
At Dover, Andy Burnham promised a relentless crackdown on small boats while arguing safer legal routes are needed to undercut smugglers.
Andy Burnham used a visit to Dover to promise a “relentless” crackdown on Channel crossings and said the government was “changing the whole approach” while arguing that safer legal routes for refugees were needed to “take away the selling point” of trafficking gangs. Officers tackling people-smuggling gangs have doubled on both sides of the Channel.
House of Commons Library figures put small boat crossings at 46,000 people in 2022, falling in 2023 and rising again. In the year ending March 2026, 39,000 people arrived by small boat, making up around 90% of all people detected arriving in the UK without authorisation.
Official figures put the total at more than 25,000 migrants who had crossed the English Channel so far this year, and the Home Office said 898 people arrived in 13 boats in the latest seven-day period. A Home Office spokesperson described small boat crossings as “dangerous”, saying they “threaten lives” and “undermine our border security”.
The response has centered on a deeper UK-France border partnership. In April 2026, the two governments agreed a new three-year cycle of UK funding worth £662 million, with at least 50 riot-trained French police officers, drones, two helicopters and a camera system deployed under the deal. The Ministry of Defence has been responsible for the operational response to small boat crossings since 14 April 2022, when Rishi Sunak announced the shift.
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