Conservatives demand ECHR exit; Liberal Democrats urge EU migration pact
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has ordered an urgent Border Security Command review of two uncontrolled Channel landings in Kent on consecutive days — at Folkestone and at Samphire Hoe — publicly describing the failure to intercept the boats as “not acceptable.”
The BBC reported that 781 people arrived in 10 boats on Wednesday, the highest single-day total recorded this year. Before Monday, no small boat had reached the UK coast without an escort since September 6, 2025. Uncontrolled landings are so rare that last year’s incident was the only other one recorded since the Home Office began tracking the metric in 2023.
Labour’s deputy leader Lucy Powell, who also serves as Education Secretary, addressed the crossings in a round of BBC local-radio interviews ahead of Labour’s annual conference. She told BBC Kent: “It’s not easy, if we had a switch that we could switch tomorrow to stop all small boats, we would switch it.”
Powell framed the issue in broader policy terms in an interview with BBC Solent. “We are taking all steps we can to really bear down on and eradicate the small boat crossings altogether,” she said. “This has been a mammoth task across a whole range of different policy areas over the last couple of years, which is now starting to bear fruit, in that small boat crossings are significantly down this year — in fact significantly lower than at any time in the last six years.”
She added that criminal smuggling networks adapt when routes are closed. “Obviously as we close down some avenues and we close down routes criminal gangs look to find new ways to deliver their terrible business model.”
On BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Powell said: “You can’t stop everything all of the time. Of course, it’s a concern. That’s why the Home Secretary has demanded and ordered this urgent review, because this is not what we want to see.”
Most migrants who cross the Channel in small boats are brought to shore by Border Security Command or Royal National Lifeboat Institution vessels. On Wednesday, British rescue boats collected a group of migrants who had spent more than 33 hours at sea, according to the BBC.
The political response split along familiar lines. Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp wrote on X: “Labour has lost control of our borders. A radically different approach is needed. We need to leave the ECHR so anyone entering Britain illegally can be rapidly deported. No hotels. No benefits. No lengthy court process. No asylum claim. Just rapid removal. Then the crossings will soon stop.”
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesperson Max Wilkinson said closer cooperation with the European Union was the missing element. “Until the government adopts Liberal Democrat proposals to tackle the root cause by entering the EU’s landmark Migration and Asylum Pact, these the [sic] smugglers will continue to find a way through, lives will be put at risk and taxpayers’ money will be wasted,” he said.
The remarks came ahead of Labour’s annual party conference.