Breaking news of these.
In the past few moments, 83 small boat migrants have arrived in Dober, taking today’s total to 162 according to GB News’s provisional figures about arrivals.
Joining me now with the latest is GB News national reporter Will Godley, who is in do with his telescope.
Will Chris, good afternoon to you.
Yeah, I didn’t need to use my telescope.
I’m close enough to see the disembarkation from the border force vessel just over my shoulder that happened about 20 minutes ago.
That latest load of small boat migrants arriving.
That was a second boat load there has been arriving today here in Dover.
They were escorted into the port here on board the border force vessel Defender and that boat set off from Belgium this morning in the early hours of this morning traveling down the coastline before then coming into the shallows by Dunkirk in France.
It was there around 6:00 in the morning before then making its way through the channel.
take it took over 6 hours to get from Dunkk to the halfway mark.
It was escorted by a French Navy vessel and then when it reaches the halfway point that’s when it’s picked up by a border force vessel.
83 as you say Chris on board and that follows an earlier boatload arriving here.
79 on board that boat.
That was far more the traditional route of the boat setting off from France.
The boat inflated, we understand, in grains and then being carried out through the dunes.
People getting on board there and then traveling on through towards Britain.
Here it took them about 2 hours to make the journey from a French coastline right to the halfway point.
They set off about 8:00 this morning and were picked up by UK border force around 10:00 before then arriving here just after 11:00 this morning.
So 162 arrivals today, but uh that is of course far fewer than perhaps you would see on the busiest days when you get over a thousand small boat migrants arriving here in Dover.
But what is interesting is that we are far more now seeing boats set off from the beaches of Belgium as this second one that’s just arrived did this morning.
And that is because of that new deal signed between the UK and France seeing the French crack down much more on small boats setting off from their beaches and so making it much harder for the people smugglers to get into the water from France.
Instead then they are choosing to get into the water from Belgium.
And Belgian authorities say last year they didn’t have a single small boat set off from their beaches.
So far this year already they said yesterday they have escorted 400 smallboat migrants from their beaches.
No doubt that figure will continue to rise as the French crack down.
Already this morning some migrants weren’t quite so lucky in getting to Britain.
We saw pictures from a beach in Dunkerk showing migrants going back into the June as their trip was thwarted perhaps because it was down to engine failure or perhaps uh French authorities slashing the boat preventing them from making the crossing as part of this crackdown from French sources.
44% reduction up to this weekend in small boat crossings compared to this time last year and a 23% reduction compared to 2024.
Chris, however, this weekend we have seen an uptick.
394 small boat arrivals uh small boat migrant arrivals yesterday on board six different small boats.
Today, 162.
And with this warm weather continuing, no doubt that number will continue to tick up over the weekend, over the bank holiday weekend, perhaps providing a headache for those in the home office looking to clamp down on the small boat crossings.
Although they would say, wouldn’t they, that number has already come down so far this year.
Okay, Will Godly, thank you for thank you for doing that and keep staying across those numbers as they arrive and we’ll go straight back to you if there are any developments.
Thank you.
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Joining me now is a political commentator Matthew Stadlin.
Matthew, another reminder of how this government cannot control our poorest southern border.
It’s a top issue for so many voters.
Chris, great to see you.
Great to see everybody.
Happy Bank Holiday weekend.
Listen, I appreciate it is a relatively slow news day, but I’m not sure that 160 people crossing the channel is breaking news or headline news.
What I would say is just point viewers to some facts, and the reporter there pointed you to to one of them.
But listen, UK migration down 48%.
Immigration Chris down 20%.
Immigration down 6%.
Asylum applications down 12%.
This is on the year.
Returns and deportations from the UK up 7%.
Arrivals by small boats, as we were just hearing there, 1st of Jan, this is to 20th of May, so just a few days ago, down 41%.
Now, those numbers may climb again.
I’m someone, the government is a government that wants these small boats to stop.
But it is tricky.
It seems as though the deal with France is beginning to work in some shape or form.
I think you would agree with me, Chris, that if the French government simply said, “We will take back everybody who arrives by small boat, this problem would disappear.
” And then we could agree with the French, we will take a certain number of genuine asylum seekers.
So the French, I think if we could do better business with the French, and I was hoping StarMA might be able to to do that, then I think this would really start to shift.
But we’re also clearly going to have to do a deal with Belgium because if people smugglers are now shifting their business model from the French coast to the Belgian coast, then that seems to me an obvious next step.
But just to say again, if you keep telling people that this is a crisis, then they’re going to believe it.
The vast majority of people who are coming here and shouldn’t be coming here in this way.
I’m absolutely clear about that.
But the vast majority of people who are coming here are trying to improve their lives.
Many of them genuine asylum seekers.
Just checking Matthew telling you are you you are saying crisis? What crisis are you? Which seems extraordinary.
There is a crisis.
The border appears uh regularly breached by small broke migrants.
numbers of people, asylum seekers living in hotels or HMOs or even army camps went up in the year that you described there.
That was one of the stats you didn’t choose to include up by about five or 6 thousand.
It is a complete insult to this country that people arrive here illegally.
And if the if the Labor government could control the southern border, you’d allow the managed arrival of people who deserve to be here who aren’t paying £2,000 to jump the queue.
Because the whole point here is how do you stop them? And I’ve just given you some examples of what the government is up to.
Shabbanammud as you know in March because you’ve been following this very closely has been changing or emphasizing that status as a refugee is temporary.
So it’s going to be checked.
These people are going to be checked every what is it 32 months something like that.
You’ll have this you’ll have the stats at hand.
The government is determined to stop this.
you I saw you on GB News the other day interviewing Mike Tap who’s one of the immigration ministers.
He’s been on the 20 questions with podcast this week as well.
He really wants to stop this.
He accepts there is more to do.
I I would just ask you this.
I mean you’ll have been talking to Nigel Farage and other reform figures.
And what we’ve heard from Zia Ysef recently is the absurd anti-democratic idea of in inverted commas punishing constituencies that don’t vote reform with detention centers.
Now, not only is that anti-democratic and absurd and very ugly, but it is also profoundly, as I’m sure you’d accept, deeply stupid.
Because let’s say there’s a constituency, Chris, that votes, say, 40% reform, but 45% people vote Labor or Green or Tory or whatever.
then those 40% in that constituency are going to have a detention center on their doorstep because Zia Ysef wants to punish the other 60%.
That is the sort of nonsense gimmicky gesture politics which tells me and I hope tells many of the GB news viewers that this reform attempt to to reach government and for Nigel Farage to get into number 10 is just a joke.
Well, yes, the user did say they want to site uh camps of migrants in areas which have been or green areas as he as he said at the time of those who want to who have been more welcoming.
But just moving back to the issue at hand here, Matthew Sadlin, what what more can this government do? They’ve been squeezing engine supply.
They’re squeezing boat supply from Germany.
They’re now being um as you say, coming from Belgium.
Should we be giving half a billion quid to the Belgium to sort out the problem given we’ve given or promised 600 million to France to try and deal with a problem they aren’t tackling? The government needs to continue Chris to be innovative.
I mean, I saw one report in recent days that there were more sniffer dogs in Bulgaria man managing the border with the EU to try and stop the sorts of boats, the inflatable dingies that end up on French or Belgian shores.
This government knows the toxicity of this issue.
Even though actually illegal immigration is not a new one as you know people in the old days or the relatively recent days actually were coming on the backs of lorries and so forth but it has become immensely visible.
And as soon as Nigel Farage started turning up on on the beaches of Kent he was he was turning it into a massive political issue.
It’s not actually that new.
It doesn’t mean it doesn’t need to be solved but it needs to be solved within the law and it needs to be solved.
You seem to be upset.
You seem to be upset with the news, Matthew Saddlin, which isn’t really our fault.
But anyway, I mean, we are covering it because it’s a problem for the government.
It’s a top three issue.
We’re regularly pled as being high up.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t be covering and I just personally don’t think 160 people arriving on these shores today, partly because it’s not particularly unusual, is headline news.
I’m here talking to you.
I’m here talking to you precisely because I want to talk to GB News viewers.
What I’m trying to explain is that the government actually is serious about this.
You’ll get people on social media saying this is open borders government.
They deliberately importing people to vote labor.
All these sorts of nonsense conspiracy theories.
What I’m saying is this is not an easy issue to fix.
It’s an issue I want to be fixed and it is an issue as you know Chris because you’ve talked to Karm, you’ve talked to many Labour politicians and some of them have been on your show or been on GB News.
This is something they’re serious about trying to fix.
that they are they are well they are serious but hopefully we can get there.
Frankly, it’s not all of our national interest.
Thank you for joining us as ever, Matthew Saturn on on a boiling hot bank holiday Saturday.
Thank you for joining us.
