Boat People

From March 2024. Boat People - with a riff taken from the amazing Led Zeppelins Immigrant Song.Published 9 May 2026 BBC verify More than 200,000 migrants have crossed the English Channel in small boats since records began in 2018, new figures show.The Home Office recorded 70 people arriving in the UK on Friday, taking the total to 200,013 in the last nine years. Calm weather conditions meant 70 people on one boat were able to make the crossing.Successive governments have promised to reduce migrant arrivals through this route and halt the smuggling operations that facilitate the dangerous crossings, but the number of small boat arrivals has more than doubled in the last three years to reach this new milestone.At least eight migrants have died while trying to cross the Channel by boat this year, according to the UN's International Organization for Migration and French authorities. Last year 23 people were confirmed to have died.Support the show