The Home Office is taking back responsibility for operations to tackle small boats carrying migrants across the English Channel after eight months under the direction of the Royal Navy.
The move follows the creation announced last month of the new Small Boat Operational Command (SBOC), bringing together military and civilian personnel and the National Crime Agency to coordinate the government’s response.
The Home Office said the SBOC – which uses drones, boats and ground-based radar and cameras to track and disrupt people traffickers – will be bolstered by hiring 730 additional staff.
Then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson initially handed over the leadership of Channel operations to the navy on a temporary basis last April, but migrants continued to arrive in record numbers.
The Home Office takes over responsibility for operations against small boats carrying migrants across the English Channel
The Home Office said the Small Boat Operational Command (SBOC), which uses drones, boats and ground-based radar and cameras to track and disrupt people traffickers, will be aided by 730 additional staff.
A government spokesman said returning responsibility to the Home Office was an “important long-term step” in ensuring the security and sovereignty of UK borders and communities.
“We are building on the progress already made through the new agreement with France, and our resolve will not waver until we end abuses of the asylum system and bring the responsible smugglers to justice,” said the spokesperson.
On Sunday, it was reported that dozens of migrants crossed the English Channel, bringing the number of those making the journey in the first month of this year to more than 1,000.
Dozens of migrants were pictured being brought to Dover, Kent, by Border Force officials on Sunday morning
Around 50 migrants attempted to make the crossing today, bringing the total for the month to more than 1,000
Photos taken at the Port of Dover this morning show Border Force officials assisting migrants wearing life jackets and wrapped in towels ashore.
They were brought in by the Border Force vessel Typhoon after being found on small boats in the English Channel.
It comes a day after 26 people from a small boat were brought in by Border Force, who have been patrolling the area for years.
So far this year there have been only a small number of days on which migrants have crossed the Channel, with most being brought on January 22 and 25 – on these days 442 and 373 people respectively have been brought to Dover.
At least 1,000 are known to have crossed the English Channel so far this year – compared to 1,341 who arrived during the whole of January last year. Last year, a record 45,728 migrants crossed the Channel, well above the 28,381 who made it in 2021.
It comes as it was revealed in The Mail On Sunday that charity campaigners are ‘continuously frustrating’ French authorities in their attempts to stop the crossings.
Well-meaning British-funded charities who believe they are donating hot meals and warm clothes for migrants are actually being used to track French police and reveal their activities and locations in footage made available smugglers.
Charities say they monitor police to stop them committing human rights abuses, but Tory MP Lee Anderson has accused them of being as ‘bad as smugglers’ because they ‘ aid and abet ”illegal gangs.
The migrants were brought into the port of Dover this morning on the Border Force vessel Typhoon
So far at least 991 people have been confirmed to have crossed the English Channel in small boats between January 1 and January 28
These gangs raked in £183million from desperate migrants by paying them to help them cross the English Channel last year, according to a Labor Party report
The opposition has pledged to crack down on organized crime groups – and their money – by releasing figures on profits made in the evil trade.
He suggested that, as the average charge for an illegal small boat crossing is estimated by French police at £4,000, the gang’s income was £183million last year, based on the record of 45,756 arrivals.
Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: ‘The Tories have allowed an entire dangerous multi-million pound criminal industry to grow along our border in the space of just three years.
“Criminals make a lot of money putting tens of thousands of lives at risk and flouting the security of Britain’s borders.
“Shockingly, the government has allowed gangs to proliferate and their profits to soar.
“These criminal smuggling and trafficking gangs cannot be allowed to get away with this.”
Ms Cooper said Labor had drawn up a plan which ‘strikes hard at the heart of criminal gangs’.
And if it wins the next legislative elections, the party will create a “new elite cell” within the National Crime Agency.
The unit, more than 100 officers strong, “will pursue these upstream smuggling gangs” in cooperation with French, German and Belgian authorities, the MP said.
