Home Office data released on Tuesday showed that the number of days with good weather conditions for Channel crossings have more than doubled compared to previous years.
But the move was branded “lazy” by the Conservatives while experts at Oxford University’s Migration Observatory said there was “no evidence to suggest that the weather is a major factor explaining long-term increases in small boat arrivals, such as the one we’ve seen over the past eight months”.
One MP from the northern and Midlands working-class seats that turned to the Tories briefly after the 2016 Brexit vote to elect Boris Johnson called on ministers to “ignore” the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to make deportations easier and consider ending asylum appeals, all in a bid to clear hotels of migrants.
The MP added that No 10 was “more receptive” to a growing feeling among backbenchers that the Government needs to go further, while the Home Office is focused “accelerating what they’re already doing” rather than the “step change” an increasing number of MPs believe is now needed.
The MP praised the Government for a video showing migrants being led on to a deportation flight in February, which sparked outrage in some quarters including within Labour, but said it was important to show voters in the Red Wall more of the action ministers are taking.
And a third Red Wall Labour MP meanwhile acknowledged the small boats crisis needs to look “drastically different” by the next election or the party would face losses.
Migrants en route to the UK wait on the beach for a dinghy in Gravelines, France (Photo: Carl Court/Getty)The senior MP rejected calls to quit the ECHR as “we’ve got a million and one problems we can’t be dealing with that as well”, but suggested “you can look at how it’s applied”, which Cooper is already scoping out with a review of how the convention’s Article 8 on a right to family life is frustrating deportations.
“The structural and more complex issues remain,” the MP said.
Closing hotels also a priority
The MP meanwhile backed calls to disapply parts of the ECHR as well as Government plans to open so-called “return hubs” in countries in the Western Balkans where it can deport failed asylum seekers if they are unable to be sent back to their home countries.
Another senior MP meanwhile said it was was “good news” that legal immigration numbers are falling but stressed “closing hotels will be the biggest visible sign of change” on the wider issue of migration.
“The issue becomes less powerful if people think we are in control of it. “
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A Home Office spokesman said: “This Government is restoring grip to the broken asylum system it inherited that saw a whole criminal smuggling enterprise allowed to develop, where gangs have been able to exploit periods of good weather to increase the rate of crossings for too long.”
Officials are understood to be pessimistic about the prospect of bringing numbers down this year, with measures not expected to start paying off until 2026.
Fact-check: Weather ‘not the only explanation’
The Government has suggested that improved weather conditions may be a key factor behind the sharp rise in small boat crossings so far this year.
According to official figures, 11,074 people crossed the Channel by small boat before May – nearly 50 per cent more than during the same period in 2024.
A new Home Office report links this increase to a greater number of “red days” – when weather and sea conditions are more likely to allow for small boat journeys. Between January and April, there were 60 such days, compared with 27 last year.
However, analysis by Sky News of the same weather criteria tells a more nuanced story.
It found that, on average, 190 people arrived on days with favourable conditions, compared with around 60 when the weather was less consistently calm. But, it also found that crossings have risen on days with poorer weather.
Sky News reported that arrivals on these less favourable days were more than 30 per cent higher than in 2024, and more than double the level recorded in 2023.
One factor behind the increase on poor weather days may be a shift in the tactics used by smuggling networks, with significantly more people making the crossing on each boat.
Home Office figures show that 47 per cent of vessels carried 60 or more people in the year to April 2025, compared with just 2 per cent three years earlier.
While the weather may be one factor it does not appear to account for the magnitude of the increase fully. The data suggests that wider operational changes, including how smugglers organise crossings, may also be playing a significant role.
Peter Walsh, senior researcher at the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, added: “The data published today suggest that over long periods of a year, the number of crossings seems to be broadly unrelated to the number of ‘red’ days that make the Channel safer to cross.
“That would make sense.
“Migrants’ decision to come to the UK by small boat is important and life-changing for them. Will they casually drop their plans and decide not to migrate because of a few consecutive days of bad weather? Or will they just wait until the next safe-weather day?”
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