Around 200 illegal migrants reached Britain in dozens of vessels on Sunday in what was reportedly the worst-ever day for illegal Channel crossings.
“Many migrants see it as a ‘now or never’ moment before the UK government cracks down on crossings,” a source told The Sun newspaper.
“They fear there will be a major push to curb the attempts and see July as their best opportunity,” they added — although, despite tough talk dating back to Home Secretary Priti Patel’s predecessor Sajid Javid’s time in office, such a push still shows no sign of materialising.
The migrants reportedly put to sea in as many as 40 vessels, many small inflatables dropped off by so-called “mother ships”, with the Sun source saying that the authorities even found one migrant who had put to sea in a stolen pedalo.
Patel was quoted by the newspaper as saying “We will stop at nothing to end these crossings” — although this evidently does not include simply taking migrants intercepted at sea or received on shore back to France immediately.
Indeed, she has made similar statements about the Government’s determination to end illegal Channel crossings for months now, but new “worst-ever” days continue to be reported.
The influx followed 65 migrants in five boats — “58 males and seven females”, according to the BBC — arriving on Saturday, and 125 migrants on nine boats arriving on Friday.
Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage, who has done much to expose the sheer scale of the Channel crisis and the co-operation of the British and French authorities in ferrying illegal aliens to England, said he was not convinced Boris Johnson and Priti Patel will ever take meaningful action on the crossings.
“Official figures show that approaching 500 illegal immigrants crossed the Channel this week,” he claimed in a social media post.
“I predicted an invasion and it is happening. Government say they will return many,” he added.
“I don’t believe a word of it.”
The Government’s record on deporting illegal migrants from France — few of whom, if any, have any legitimate grounds to claim asylum in Britain, having travelled through a safe, first world, European Union member-state to get there — is certainly very poor, with a mere 155 out of roughly 4,000 illegal arrivals since January having been deported as of early May.