Migrant crisis: More than 15,000 illegal crossings of English Channel this year

It follows another tragedy in the Channel just hours earlier, when one migrant drowned and another 71 were rescued after their boat began deflating off the French coast, near Calais.

Relatively good conditions in the Channel saw people smugglers launch multiple boats from the beaches of northern France early this morning.

Just after 9:30am, the Border Force vessel Defender arrived in Dover harbour with the first group of migrants.

GB News Kent producer counted 108 people disembark the Defender.

An hour and a half later, he counted just under 90 migrants on board the Border Force vessel Volunteer after it arrived at the Kent port.

Just over an hour after that, a further 118 migrants were taken off the Border Force vessel Hurricane.

Today's arrivals take the total number of migrants who have made the illegal crossing from France this year to 15,074.

That figure is 13 per cent higher than the number who arrived in the UK at the same point last year.

The number crossing since Sir Keir Starner's Labour government came to power just a fortnight ago has now reached 1,500.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday that Channel crossings were at a record high in the first half of the year and indicated a "difficult summer ahead."

The Shadow Home Secretary James Cleverly accused the newly-elected Prime Minister of erecting a "huge 'open' sign on the white cliffs of Dover" after axing the Rwanda deportation deterrent scheme and allowing illegal Channel migrants to claim asylum.