3 days ago
Why Britain faces its worst ever summer for migrant crossings
Good summer weather could lead to record Channel migrant crossings this year, Home Office data is expected to show.
The number of 'red days' – when Border Force expects a surge in small boats due to calm seas – have been 'unusually high' in 2024-25, according to official figures due to be published on Tuesday.
Preliminary data up until the end of March this year showed that there were 182 red days in 2024-25 compared with 108 in 2023-24, 159 in 2022-23 and 164 in 2021-22.
Ministers will claim that the figures go some way to explain why the first five months of this year have seen a record 14,812 crossings, up 42 per cent on the same period in 2024.
The rising number of 'red days' is also combined with a steady increase in the number of migrants being packed onto the dinghies, from 28 per boat in 2021 to 56 in 2025, up until the end of March.
In 2024/25, there were more than 100 boats with more than 80 migrants on board, up from 31 in the previous year and just two in 2021/22.
Meanwhile, the Met Office's three-month forecast suggests the UK is heading for a heatwave over the summer with a 45 per cent chance it will be hotter than normal. Rain and wind speeds are predicted to be close to normal over the same period.
If the clear weather continues, independent modelling suggests that crossings by migrants are on course to hit a yearly record-equalling total of between 45,000 and 50,000, unless measures planned or already introduced by UK and French Governments can reverse the trend.
Based on current weather patterns, the statistical modelling by researcher Dr Richard Wood forecasts that arrivals will hit nearly 46,000 this year – on a par with 2022's record and 20 per cent higher than last year's total.
His research shows the weather is so critical that the odds of an unviable day, when there will be no crossings, increase by 11 per cent for every centimetre of wave height, reduce by six per cent for every degree of sea temperature and rise by 10 per cent for each hour of eight to 12 knot westerly winds.
It means that migrant arrivals on 'viable' or 'red' days are two per cent lower for every centimetre of wave height, three per cent higher for every degree of sea temperature and four per cent higher for every hour in the day when a medium southerly wind blows the small boats towards the UK coast.
The Government does not publish its criteria for determining when it will declare a 'red day,' which acts as an alert to Border Force, coastguards and RNLI to prepare for a surge in crossings.
The Telegraph conducted its own analysis based on wind speeds, visibility, rainfall, wave height and sea surface temperature, which showed a lower number of red days than those projected by the Home Office.
However, it still suggested Sir Keir Starmer had a higher number of red days in the four months to the end of April this year – at 27 – and a higher average rate of crossings per red day at 141.7. This compared to 24 red days with a rate of 121.6 for Rishi Sunak.
Asked if the Government's decision to publish data on the number of red days for the first time was a ploy to blame the weather for crossings, Sir Keir's spokesman said: 'As the Home Secretary has said before, we have to get to a position where the level of crossings is not reliant on the weather.
'That means breaking the hold that these criminal gangs have established over this trade and breaking the link between crossings and the weather, such that we're stopping people from making these dangerous journeys, whatever the weather.'
