According to provisional Home Office data, more than 25,000 migrants have been detected crossing the Channel since Sir Keir Starmer became prime minister. Last weekend, the number of migrant arrivals in the UK was nearly a new record.

A total of 240 people made the journey in four boats on Saturday, taking the provisional number of migrants to have crossed the Channel and reached Britain’s shores in 2025 to 1,893, the Independent writes.

This brings the total provisional number of migrants to have crossed the Channel since Sir Keir Starmer became prime minister to 25,135.

Saturday’s provisional figure was the second-highest in 2025, with 260 migrants detected crossing the Channel on January 13. A total of 36,816 people crossed the English Channel in 2024, an increase of 25% compared to 2023, when 29,437 arrivals were registered.

A Home Office spokesperson said:

“We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security. The people-smuggling gangs do not care if the vulnerable people they exploit live or die, as long as they pay. We will stop at nothing to dismantle their business models and bring them to justice.”

In January, the United Kingdom announced plans to impose sanctions on members of human smuggling gangs to halt illegal crossings.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer stated that travel bans and asset freezes would target the illicit financial networks enabling people smugglers and traffickers to target and exploit vulnerable individuals.

The government indicated that these sanctions could be implemented within a year.

The Labour government, elected in July under Starmer’s leadership, pledged to dismantle criminal organisations responsible for sending thousands of migrants on perilous journeys across one of the world’s busiest shipping routes annually. Starmer emphasized that these gangs pose a global security threat and should be addressed similarly to terrorist networks.

However, questions regarding the effectiveness of these measures remain, as UK authorities can only freeze assets located within the country, while the majority of human smugglers operate elsewhere.