Badenoch: I would cut migrant Channel crossings to zero
Tory leader says Labour ‘making excuses’ as number of arrivals under Starmer hits 50,000
Kemi Badenoch has said she would reduce the number of migrants crossing the Channel to zero “quickly” if she became prime minister.
Speaking on the Isle of Wight, the Conservative Party leader said Labour’s plan to smash the gangs was “just a slogan”.
Mrs Badenoch’s comments come after Baroness Smith of Malvern said the record number of crossings this year was not Labour’s fault, but admitted the Government had so far failed to bring them down.
The number of small boat crossings since Sir Keir Starmer became Prime Minister reached 50,000 on Tuesday.
Asked if she could reduce the number to zero, Mrs Badenoch said: “I think that we can ... it wouldn’t happen straight away, but it would happen quickly.
“My team are now looking at what we can do in terms of detention centres, but stopping people from coming here in the first place – if they think they’re going to be sent to Rwanda and not get here, get a free hotel, get benefits, then they won’t come here.”
Asked what the detention centres would entail, Mrs Badenoch pointed to the Nightingale hospitals built during the Covid pandemic, adding: “What we need is the Government to actually get the people who are experts to figure out what the solution can look like. It can be done. There’s no point just making excuses.”
Mrs Badenoch’s pledge comes months after Rishi Sunak admitted his plan to “stop the boats” was “too stark” and ultimately undeliverable.
Her Tory predecessor’s promise to stop Channel crossings was one of his five priorities upon entering No 10, but he told the BBC’s Political Thinking podcast after he left office that “the way it was communicated wasn’t quite right. It was too stark, it was too binary”.
Asked whether she was saying the crossings were not Labour’s fault, the former home secretary said: “We are taking responsibility. I don’t believe it is our fault that it was enabled to take root in the way in which it has done by a government who failed to do what was necessary at that point.
“But … through changes to legislation, through international agreements, through the figures that are already showing we are returning more people, we are closing asylum hotels. There are signs of progress but there is more that we need to do and that is what we will be focusing on. It is our responsibility now and we are taking that responsibility seriously.”
Home Office figures published on Monday showed 49,797 people had made the crossing since Sir Keir became prime minister.
It took Rishi Sunak 603 days and Boris Johnson 1,066 days to reach that number. It has Sir Keir 403 days. More than 25,000 people have arrived by small boat so far in 2025 – a record for this point in the year since data began in 2018.
The first migrants were detained last week as part of the new UK-France returns deal.
Britain ratified a treaty with France earlier this summer, meaning those entering the UK on a small boat can now be detained on arrival and returned across the Channel.
It is believed that about 50 migrants will be returned to France each week, with the numbers expected to climb by the end of the year.
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