Nearly 800 small-boat migrants arrived in Britain in a single day as footage emerged of a man appearing to abandon a young child in the sea while trying to board a dinghy in France.
The child, who appeared to be aged three or four, was left floating for several seconds in chest-deep water off Berck beach, around 30 miles south of Boulogne, on Monday afternoon.
Members of the French lifeboat organisation SNSM swam towards the youngster and pulled them from the water. The child, wearing a black hooded anorak and an orange lifejacket, was taken back to shore on a rescue board.
The man then continued trying to climb aboard the small boat. It is not known whether he was related to the child.
The scenes came as the Home Office confirmed that 781 migrants reached Britain on Wednesday, the highest daily figure recorded this year. The previous high was 752 arrivals on July 29.
A total of 1,085 people crossed the Channel in small boats during the first three days of the week. Ten boats were intercepted in the middle of the Channel and escorted to Dover by UK Border Force.
The latest figure was more than five times the average number of arrivals on a so-called red day during the first eight months of the year. Red days are those when weather conditions and other factors are considered more favourable for crossings.
Home Office figures published two weeks ago said the average number of crossings on a red day between January and the end of August had fallen significantly to 144.
The Government said its overall strategy was producing results, despite the latest surge.
A spokesman said: “Our progress this year in tackling small boats is indisputable – with crossings down by 42 per cent and the lowest recorded over the summer months since 2020.
“But this week’s events show that while the peaks we are seeing are far below those of previous years, we need to push further and harder in order to eradicate this vile trade.”
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said the 83,279 small-boat migrants who had entered Britain under Labour now exceeded the number of full-time soldiers in the British Army.
“Labour has let an entire Army-sized population cross the Channel,” he said. “More people have arrived in small boats than we have soldiers defending Britain.
“That is completely bonkers. Labour has lost control of our borders and seems utterly incapable of getting it back.”
Two uncontrolled landings were reported in Kent this week. Up to 30 migrants reached a beach by dinghy on Tuesday before police arrived, while as many as seven people landed at another location the previous day without being intercepted.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has ordered an urgent review into how the boats crossed the Channel unchallenged.
Education Secretary Lucy Powell said the Government could not prevent every crossing, but described the latest events as unacceptable.
“[You] can’t stop everything all of the time,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “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. This is not acceptable.”
She added that the wider picture was improving and that tackling the crossings required constant work by border forces, security services, police and international partners.
The Government has relied on increased law-enforcement activity in Britain and Europe since scrapping the Conservatives’ Rwanda asylum deal in 2024. In April, Ms Mahmood signed a new £662 million, three-year agreement with the French government intended to strengthen beach patrols and prevent crossings.
Critics have questioned whether the arrangement provides value for money, while French gendarmes have been seen failing to intervene as dinghies launched towards Britain.
In another incident this week, a dinghy carrying 51 migrants took 38 hours to travel from near Bayeux in Normandy before its occupants were rescued by RNLI lifeboats and transferred to a Border Force cutter. They were brought ashore at Dover in the early hours of Wednesday.
Wednesday’s total was the highest daily number since December 20 last year, when 803 people arrived. The record for a single day remains 1,305, set on September 3, 2022.
