The record number of illegal migrants crossing the English Channel so far this year can be attributed to one factor – the weather. So said the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper on Tuesday when pushed to answer just why the country’s porous border is being so easily crossed by multiple boat arrivals from France.
She said criminal people smuggling gangs have been “taking advantage of the much higher number of calm weather days” with over 10,000 feared to have been detected.
Cooper failed to address the “pull factors” like immediate free accommodation, clothing, phones, access to public funds, and a total lack of cooperation by French authorities who refuse to act to stop illegal migrant departures from their shores.
All this while people smugglers make spectacular profits from their illicit trade.
People Smuggling Gangs Making Up to £1.6 Million Per Day From English Channel Boat Migrantshttps://t.co/Bp4Z7ktjGI
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 17, 2024
Asked whether she thought she was doing a good job of stopping crossings, Yvette Cooper told Times Radio:
The boats are high and this is undermining border security, it’s putting lives at risk. It’s why it’s so essential to take action on the criminal gangs that are underpinning this vile trade in people. They have been taking advantage of the much higher number of calm weather days.
Cooper later admitted the situation “cannot continue” before again claiming factors outside her control, repeating “the impact on our border security of the weather is so significant.”
As Breitbart News reported, record numbers of boats have been landing long before the days of summer came.
Illegal Migrant Crossings of English Channel Hit Daily Record for Year as Nearly 1,000 Cross From Francehttps://t.co/rtkdAh23vo
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) October 6, 2024
Last October illegal crossings of the English Channel hit a new record for the year as nearly a thousand migrants were brought ashore by British authorities in one day after departing the French coastline.
Soon after Cooper promised the government would immediately invest £75 million to ramp up border security measures and to facilitate National Crime Agency investigations to thwart people smuggling networks.
No result of that promise has so far been seen.
Britain’s Home Secretary Yvette Cooper (C) and her French counterpart, Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau (3L) see an example of the type of boats used by people-smuggling gangs on February 27, 2025 in Etaples-sur-Mer, France. Cooper promised “stern measures” would soon to be introduced in the UK to stop the illegal migrants. ( Leon Neal/Getty Images)
Commenting after those illegal arrivals landed, Reform UK Member of Parliament Rupert Lowe remarked: “I always try to understand where political opponents are coming from. But on thousands of unknown foreign young men illegally entering the UK? Then cared for and housed at our expense? Endangering British people?
“It’s entirely unjustifiable – there is no reasonable defence.”
