Migration Watch UK
4 September, 2020
1. The number of people that look set to arrive in the UK via illegal Channel crossing may be on course to approach 10,000 in 2020 should they continue at the rate seen since January.
2. The previous daily record of 235 arrivals on 6 August was vastly surpassed on 2 September with 416 arrivals on 28 boats.[1]
3. Our July 2020 estimate of nearly 7,600 for 2020[2] has been updated in light of the surge in arrivals over the Summer. This, for example, saw more than seven times the number of detected arrivals in July 2020 as there were in July 2019 - 1,301 compared to 170.
4. Overall, the number of arrivals in 2020 so far (well over 5,500 between 1 January and 2 September) is around five times the estimated total of 1,124 that arrived in the same period in 2019.[3]
5. If this continues to the end of 2020, it would mean total detected arrivals amounting to five times the 2019 total of 1,892 - or 9,460. That said there may be other factors, including action by the French or by the UK government or inclement weather, which affect the total[4]
6. Such figures cover only those detected. The total number of migrants who have entered the UK by evading UK border controls is of course not known but is bound to make the actual number even higher.
7. A look at the pattern of arrivals by month suggests that the bulk of arrivals last year occurred during the months of Summer and Autumn, when the sea was calmer and temperatures warmer.
8. This pattern saw 70% of detected arrivals in 2019 in the second half of the year, and this was even more marked in 2018.