Small boats symbolise Britain’s bitter immigrant debate

Mark O'Neill June 26, 2025 16:26

This week a British newspaper published a photograph of a man with a crutch being helped to board a dinghy on a beach in northern France, which crossed the English Channel to the beach of Dover. He was one of 17,000 illegal migrants who have entered the country on such boats during the first five months of this year, up 38 per cent from the same period in 2024. “One migrant reaches Britain every four and a half minutes,” the Daily Mail proclaimed,

These boats are the most vivid symbols of a bitter debate raging with British society over how to limit the inflow of arrivals. In 2024, the country had a net immigration of 431,000, compared to 860,000 in 2023.

“Our schools, hospitals and other public services simply cannot cope with this level of migration,” said Donald Smith, a retired army officer. “We British are already a minority in London. This government and the one before it have failed to curb the arrivals. I would stop the boats with naval vessels and take the migrants to St Helena (in the South Atlantic) where they could grow their own food. It is extremely difficult to send the migrants back to their home countries.”

Britain’s population in 2025 is 69.55 million. Of these, 9.6 million are ethnic minorities, and 3.7 million non-British whites are here legally. The 2021 census found that 75 per cent of the population of England and Wales were white British.

“Whole areas of UK town and cities are becoming unrecognisable as English,” said Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK party, which has made the fight against immigration its major policy. “Large parts of the nation are no longer culturally English.”

Farage speaks for many people. In local elections in England on May 1 this year, Reform UK won 31 per cent of the vote, the largest amount of any party, and took control of 10 local councils. In the general election in July 2024, it won 14.3 per cent of the vote. But, because of Britain’s election system, it only won five seats. The system does not accurately reflect the proportion of votes.

Residents of Dover and other cities have organised demonstrations with the banner “Stop the Boats”. Farage’s proposal is to deport all those who arrive on the small boats back to France.

The boat traffic is easy to follow and report. The migrants live in camps, forests and in the open in Calais, the French town closest to Britain. The residents of Calais do not welcome them and want them gone. They come from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia and other countries in Africa. They could claim asylum and seek legal status in France but chose not to. They tell reporters that Britain is fairer than France and more likely to give them asylum; many say that they have family or friends in Britain.

A major reason is that, outside former French colonies, most countries in the world use English as the second language. If the migrants can speak a second language, it is usually English.

The trafficking is lucrative and highly organised. Those running it provide trucks to bring the migrants to the beaches, often carrying the dinghy on the roof. Within minutes, the migrants have boarded the boat and set off into the Channel. The traffickers watch the French police and choose times and locations where they are absent. Until now, the French police have been unable to arrest them in the water because of legal restrictions. Under new legislation soon to be passed, they will be able to. As they cross the Channel, many migrants discard their passports and other identity documents into the sea, to make it harder for the British authorities to deport them.

Another route from Calais to England is to board one of the hundreds of container trucks that drive through the Channel Tunnel every day.

After landing in England, almost all these migrants claim political asylum. According to government figures, in the year that ended March 2025, a record 109,343 people claimed asylum in the UK, 17 per cent more than in the year ending March 2024 and six per cent more than the previous record of 103,081 in 2002. The top three nationalities were Pakistanis, Afghans and Iranians. Of the total, 70 per cent were male, including 12,428 aged 17 or younger. In 2024, 1.03 million people claimed political asylum in the EU and UK. In number of claimants, UK ranked fifth.

As of the end of last year, 38,079 of the claimants in the UK were being housed in hotels, costing the government 108 million pounds a month. In August last year, violent protestors attacked two hotels in the north and centre of Britain used to house asylum seekers. They said that the government should use the money to build local schools, housing and other facilities instead of helping the migrants.

The question being asked in political circles is whether Farage and his Reform UK party can turn this anger against migrants into sufficient support to win the next general election in 2029. “Prime Minister Farage was once unthinkable – not any more” wrote a commentary in the Times newspaper on Saturday (June 21). “Reform is well ahead in the polls. More than a protest vote, it is becoming a party of government. Could Farage be Prime Minister? Absolutely. The real question is what – or who – will stop him.”

Mark O'Neill

A Hong Kong-based writer, teacher and speaker.