SMALL boat arrivals hit a winter record this week as 609 migrants made the crossing on a single day.
They made the dangerous Channel journey in nine dinghies on Thursday despite the chilly conditions.
It marks the highest daily number of migrant arrivals in any December, January or February since the crisis began in 2018.
Total 2024 boat crossings have now surpassed 34,000, 19 per cent more than the 29,090 at the same point last year.
Sir Keir Starmer’s spokesman today insisted that “of course these numbers need to be reduced” and touted the work of the new Border Security Command to tackle gangs.
The Tories blamed the PM’s axing of the Rwanda plan for the uplift in illegal migration because he lacks a credible deterrent.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philip called the record a “day of shame for Labour”.
He said: “This huge number of illegal crossings shows Labour is failing to tackle small boats. They cancelled the Rwanda deterrent before it even started.
“If they had allowed those Rwanda flights to start as planned in July, illegal immigrants would not bother attempting to cross.
“Labour is failing us on illegal immigration and leaving our borders undefended.”
Sir Keir has accused the Conservatives of running an “open borders experiment” by letting both legal and illegal migration spiral.
Downing Street said: “This is the chaos that this Government inherited.
“We put in place a serious credible plan to bring order to the asylum system by smashing smuggling gangs through our new Border Security Command, tackling the problem upstream with greater international collaboration and ramping up returns of those with no right to be here.”
