Labour MP Tris Osborne has welcomed Andy Burnham’s pledge to work towards stopping small boat crossings altogether. The Prime Minister set out the goal after two boats reached the Kent coast without being intercepted.
Osborne, the MP for Chatham and Aylesford, said crossings were falling because of government action. “We inherited a broken system and [are] repairing it,” he wrote, describing Burnham’s approach as “relentless”. His claim about the cause of the fall goes further than the arrival figures alone can establish.
In an interview with BBC South East, Burnham said his goal was to see no crossings, but declined to set a deadline or promise that the government would achieve it by a particular date. He said ministers would keep pursuing the criminal gangs organising journeys across the Channel.
A fall in arrivals, but a difficult week in Kent
The BBC reported that 18,565 people had arrived by small boat in 2026 up to 23 September, compared with 32,188 over the same period in 2025. That is a substantial year-on-year fall, although the comparison does not by itself identify how much of the change is due to government policy. Crossing conditions also affect when boats attempt the journey.
The immediate pressure on ministers came from events on the Kent coast. Provisional Home Office figures record one boat landing without interception on 21 September and another on 22 September. On 23 September, 781 people arrived in ten boats, the highest daily total reported this year.
Burnham backed Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s call for a review of the two unescorted landings and said he wanted “urgent answers”. The incidents raise a question distinct from the overall number of crossings: how boats reached shore without being intercepted, and what the authorities will change in response.
The test for the government
Burnham argued that disruption of smuggling gangs had led them to change tactics, including routes and vessels. That is the Prime Minister’s assessment; the published arrival totals do not independently establish why particular tactics have changed. He also said the loss of cooperation with European neighbours after Brexit had made the task harder.
For Osborne, whose Kent constituency gives him a direct interest in Channel policy, the lower year-on-year total supports the case that the government is making progress. The unresolved test is whether that decline can be sustained while the authorities address the failures exposed by this week’s landings. The Home Office says its daily figures are provisional and may change when final statistics are published.
