Number of annual migrants crossing the Channel FALLS for first time in win for Rishi after ‘stop the boats’ pledge

RISHI Sunak today hurtled into election year with a major small boats win – as stats confirm annual crossings have FALLEN for the first time on record. 

The number of illegal migrants braving the Channel in 2023 were down by more than a third on the previous year. 

Home Office figures put last year’s figure at 29,437, 36 per cent lower than the record 45,774 crossings for the whole of 2022.

Stopping small boat arrivals is a flagship pledge of the PM who is preparing to make immigration a key campaign issue in his battle to stay in No10. 

While his Rwanda plan has been gummed up in legal fights, Mr Sunak has hailed a half-billion-pound deal with France to ramp up their beach patrols. 

And he has pointed to return agreements with countries like Albania which has seen a major drop in migrants coming from the Balkan state. 

But experts warned 2023 could be just a “glitch” and that this year would see a larger influx of small boat crossings.

Lucy Moreton, the immigration services union boss, told BBC Radio 4: “The planning assumption for 2024 is that 2023 has been unusually low.

“There have been other confounding factors – we have had particularly high winds, we have had a larger number of days where it is less likely that we are going to get migrants in boats.

“But we have also had much larger boats, much more seaworthy boats, so the planning assumption is that this is a glitch.

“Border Force needs to continue to resource itself – and the country needs to continue to resource itself – to deal with higher numbers.

“Will we see the peak that we saw in 2022? Maybe not, but certainly more than we have seen in the last year.”