France has rejected a proposal by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to deploy British Border Force vessels to intercept small boats in French waters and return migrants to France
People smugglers are offering desperate migrants £500 “summer deals” to risk their lives crossing the Channel.
The prices are the lowest since the small boats crisis began in 2018 – leading to fears of more deaths if safe routes are not provided. Four migrants died on Thursday trying to cross from France to Britain. But just hours afterwards smugglers had posted messages promoting the perilous crossings.
A post in a WhatsApp group read: “My dear friend, everyone here/in this group knows me, it’s not a cage for you, it costs $500, you don’t pay a single penny until you receive the visa.”
One French source warned: “It’s clear with the prices decreasing to just £500 that the level of unsafety on the journeys increases. The engines are becoming poorer in quality, leading to more problems. The smugglers are cutting more corners and taking more risks. It is shocking. More tragedies will happen.”
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Politicians and campaigners are demanding Keir Starmer keeps his promise to crack down on criminals behind the crossings. Louise Calvey, executive director at Asylum Matters, said: “We should all be utterly appalled, not by the prices people are supposedly paying to risk their lives in our Channel, but by the fact that our government continues to feed the business model of the criminal networks who put lives at risk for profit.”
In 2024, the PM vowed to use counter-terrorism tactics to stop people-smuggling gangs before they act, as he announced an extra £75million to police the UK’s borders. Mr Starmer said the UK’s new Border Security Command would “treat people smugglers like terrorists”, with enhanced powers to trace suspected human traffickers and shut down their bank accounts.
He said the cash boost, which will be used to hire hundreds of new investigators and intelligence officers, takes the funding for the BSC to a total of £150m. However, a row continues between the UK and France over who should intercept small boats as talks on a deal to tackle them drag on.
France has rejected a proposal by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to deploy British Border Force vessels to intercept small boats in French waters and return migrants to France.
Labour MP Rachael Maskell told the Mirror : “Every life lost is an absolute tragedy. Already six people have died in the English Channel this year, while 24 died in 2025, down from 73 in 2024. However, these lower-cost crossings could see the numbers rise again over this highly dangerous stretch of water.
“It is vital the government creates a safe and legal path for asylum, taking the trade away from these violent criminal gangs who are profiting out of the tragedy and desperation of very vulnerable people and will go to any length to get people into their boats. Cutting the transit fee is their latest provocation as government seek to dissuade people from the Channel crossing.
“Reaching the threshold for asylum is incredibly high as legally set out by the UNHCR and the Refugee Convention (1951). Government must realise that the failure to provide safe routes is driving people into the hands of people traffickers and only a model of a robust border with safe routes can prevent these deaths from drowning.”
Alp Mehmet, chairman of Migration Watch UK, added: “This is the cheapest crossings have ever been. It’s a shocking situation. And, with the conflict in Iran, it is undoubted that migrants fleeing the country will arrive by small boat in Britain as well.”
Evidence has been found on social media in chats between smugglers and has emerged in French court cases where prices are just £500. It is feared there will be a rise in crossings as the weather improves. On Thursday, two men and two women died after trying to board a dinghy off northern France.
A Sudanese man, 27, was arrested on suspicion of “endangering another during a journey by sea to the UK”, the National Crime Agency said. He was held at Manston processing centre in Kent. The victims were swept away by strong currents at around 7am, off Saint Etienne au Mont, near Calais.
It came after migrants were seen scrambling to board a small boat off the coast of Dunkirk. Two migrants died following an incident last week, while another person is missing.
In a separate case, two women and a man were burned when their small boat reportedly caught fire off the coast at Le Portel. A woman, 17, suffered burns all over her body and 77 people were rescued.
About 2,200 migrants crossed the Channel in the first two months of 2026. Around 41,500 people made the crossing in 2025, according to the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory. The BSC suffered a blow last month when its chief Martin Hewitt resigned after just 18 months.
Small boat numbers rose while he was in the role but the former police chief previously expressed frustration at the time it was taking French authorities to help stop crossings. Labour introduced the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, which became law last December, to bolster Immigration Enforcement, police and NCA operations on smugglers. It is a crime to supply, offer to supply or handle articles such as small boat parts, with jail terms up to 14 years.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “This Government is bearing down on small boat crossings. We have prevented over 42,000 illegal crossing attempts since the election, delivered the largest migrant smuggling crackdown on record and introduced an offence that criminalises the online promotion of unlawful immigration services. We will continue working relentlessly to prevent these perilous journeys.”
