No migrant Channel crossings over Christmas for first time in five years

Number of crossings fell in 2023 as Sunak pledges progress on backlog but offers no end date

For the first time in five years, the English Channel has seen no migrant crossings during the festive period. Reuters

No migrants crossed the English Channel during the Christmas period – for the first time in five years.

Home Office figures have revealed that there were no crossings on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, or Boxing Day of this year, a first since 2018.

This lull in the number of crossings extends to 10 days without any arrivals, attributed potentially to poor weather.

The most recent crossing was on December 16, when 55 people arrived in the UK from France in a single boat.

In contrast, on Christmas Day last year, there were 90 arrivals, with no crossings recorded on the surrounding days.

Similar patterns were observed in 2021, with 67 arrivals on December 25. The years 2020 and 2019 experienced crossings on Boxing Day, but none on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.

This year, there has been a 36 per cent decrease in crossings compared with the same period last year.

The provisional total for 2023 is fewer than 30,000, significantly lower than the record 45,774 arrivals in 2022. The current total is 29,437.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak last week conceded there was no firm date for fulfilling his leadership contest pledge to “stop the boats”. One of his priorities involves a new law aimed at detaining and removing those who arrive by small boat.

Facing the Commons Liaison Committee, Mr Sunak was unable to specify when the backlog of asylum claims, totalling 109,442 cases as of the end of November, would be cleared.

Before the summer of 2022, he committed to resolving the legacy backlog by the end of this year. This segment of the backlog has decreased by about three quarters since June, standing at 18,366 cases by the end of November.

When questioned about the pledge, Mr Sunak expressed optimism about the progress but did not confirm a completion date, saying: “We’re not at the end of the year yet, so the final statistics haven’t been published, but we are making very good progress.”

He also refrained from setting a target for clearing the overall backlog, which continues to grow, reaching 91,076 for applications made on or after June 28, 2022.