Here’s why it is already a bonanza year for Channel migrants: Labour is lost in the Tories’ haunted house – and the lights don’t work.
Another week, another record shattered—but not the kind you frame on a wall.
In just the first three and a half months of 2025, more migrants have crossed the Channel in small boats than in the entire first four months of last year. That 2024 figure was itself a record at the time.
It’s a damning statistic – one that exposes the government’s repeated insistence that it has a “serious credible plan” to bring the asylum system under control as little more than desperate PR spin. To call it hollow would be generous.
It sounds like the panicked protest of a child insisting they can defend themselves against the bullies—while clearly getting beaten to a pulp.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
Rather than challenge the narrative that the Tories built over a decade—scapegoating migrants, criminalising the vulnerable, dismantling legal routes, and underfunding the entire asylum infrastructure—Labour has chosen to be judged by that very same broken yardstick.
Big mistake.
When you ask the public to measure your success against Conservative benchmarks, you’re already halfway to failure.
You’re trying to tidy up a house that’s not only trashed, but haunted—and you’re fumbling for a light switch that probably doesn’t work anymore. That’s how it goes in nightmares.
And this? This is policy-making as a waking nightmare.
The numbers tell the real story. In 2022, 6,691 Channel crossings were recorded in the first four months of the year. In 2023, it fell to 5,946 – but this was a short-term aberration. Then came 2024’s record 7,567—and now, in mid-April 2025, we’re already at 8,064.
Despite all the talk of crackdowns, boat seizures, tougher penalties, and “ramping up returns,” the tide hasn’t turned. It’s rising.
And still, Labour clings to a cautious, inoffensive script—as though it fears the wrath of right-wing media columnists more than the consequences of continued failure.
What it should be saying is simple: “It took the Conservatives more than a decade to build this mess. No one can fix it in a few months. Anyone who says otherwise is a fantasist.”
Let’s be real: no amount of tough-sounding policy about longer jail terms or faster deportations is going to stop people who are fleeing war, poverty, or persecution, especially when they’re being lured with false promises by smugglers.
What’s needed is co-ordinated international effort, safe legal routes, and actual processing capacity. But we keep getting slogans instead.
But that kind of plain-speaking clarity seems to be beyond the Labour government.
Instead, we get more triangulation. More of the same skittish posturing. More fear of alienating a public that is, ironically, far more ready for honesty than politicians realise.
And while Labour gropes its way through the debris, the Tories—having set the house on fire—are standing outside yelling “Why haven’t you put it out yet?”
It would be laughable, if it weren’t so painfully predictable.
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Channel migrants: Labour is lost in the Tories’ haunted house – and the lights don’t work
Here’s why it is already a bonanza year for Channel migrants: Labour is lost in the Tories’ haunted house – and the lights don’t work.
Another week, another record shattered—but not the kind you frame on a wall.
In just the first three and a half months of 2025, more migrants have crossed the Channel in small boats than in the entire first four months of last year. That 2024 figure was itself a record at the time.
It’s a damning statistic – one that exposes the government’s repeated insistence that it has a “serious credible plan” to bring the asylum system under control as little more than desperate PR spin. To call it hollow would be generous.
It sounds like the panicked protest of a child insisting they can defend themselves against the bullies—while clearly getting beaten to a pulp.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
Rather than challenge the narrative that the Tories built over a decade—scapegoating migrants, criminalising the vulnerable, dismantling legal routes, and underfunding the entire asylum infrastructure—Labour has chosen to be judged by that very same broken yardstick.
Big mistake.
When you ask the public to measure your success against Conservative benchmarks, you’re already halfway to failure.
You’re trying to tidy up a house that’s not only trashed, but haunted—and you’re fumbling for a light switch that probably doesn’t work anymore. That’s how it goes in nightmares.
And this? This is policy-making as a waking nightmare.
The numbers tell the real story. In 2022, 6,691 Channel crossings were recorded in the first four months of the year. In 2023, it fell to 5,946 – but this was a short-term aberration. Then came 2024’s record 7,567—and now, in mid-April 2025, we’re already at 8,064.
Despite all the talk of crackdowns, boat seizures, tougher penalties, and “ramping up returns,” the tide hasn’t turned. It’s rising.
And still, Labour clings to a cautious, inoffensive script—as though it fears the wrath of right-wing media columnists more than the consequences of continued failure.
What it should be saying is simple: “It took the Conservatives more than a decade to build this mess. No one can fix it in a few months. Anyone who says otherwise is a fantasist.”
Let’s be real: no amount of tough-sounding policy about longer jail terms or faster deportations is going to stop people who are fleeing war, poverty, or persecution, especially when they’re being lured with false promises by smugglers.
What’s needed is co-ordinated international effort, safe legal routes, and actual processing capacity. But we keep getting slogans instead.
But that kind of plain-speaking clarity seems to be beyond the Labour government.
Instead, we get more triangulation. More of the same skittish posturing. More fear of alienating a public that is, ironically, far more ready for honesty than politicians realise.
And while Labour gropes its way through the debris, the Tories—having set the house on fire—are standing outside yelling “Why haven’t you put it out yet?”
It would be laughable, if it weren’t so painfully predictable.
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (bottom right of the home page). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com
5) Follow Vox Political writer Mike Sivier on BlueSky
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:
The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
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