At least 600 migrants crossed the Channel in small boats yesterday in a surge of arrivals that shattered Labour’s claims to be getting a grip on the crisis.

Smugglers exploited improved weather conditions to launch at least nine inflatable boats from France packed with migrants – the first crossings in 28 days.

Video footage taken in the early hours of yesterday morning showed migrants swimming towards a dinghy as it prepared to leave from a quayside near the port of Dunkirk.

The flotilla is believed to have included a number of so-called ‘mega dinghies’, which are almost 40ft long and can carry more than 100 people.

The huge numbers arriving yesterday could mean the number of small boats crossing the Channel has smashed the milestone of 40,000 this year.

On Friday, Home Office figures showed there had not been any small-boat arrivals since November 14 – the longest uninterrupted run since autumn 2018.

The revelation prompted back-slapping from Labour’s Tristan Osborne, MP for Chatham and Aylesford in Kent. He wrote on X: ‘A long way to go for sure… But finally we are seeing the heavy work paying off.

‘Under Labour the longest stretch without boat crossings since the surge started [under the Conservatives].’

But within 12 hours of Mr Osborne’s crowing message, reports started to emerge of hundreds of migrants scrambling onto boats from multiple sites along the French coast, apparently unheeded by the police.

The surge prompted an ‘indigo’ alert yesterday morning with four of the five Border Force patrol vessels put to sea: Hurricane, Ranger, Typhoon and Volunteer.

At 10.30am, Hurricane arrived into Dover harbour with the first load of rescued migrants. Around 140, taken off two dinghies in the middle of the Channel, were led to a nearby Border Force processing centre. The patrol vessel then returned to sea and by lunchtime came back to Dover with at least another 100 migrants.

Fisherman Matthew Coker said last night it was ‘farcical’ to claim Labour was getting on top of the problem. The lull in crossings, he said, was simply due to a prolonged period of strong winds and waves in the Channel this month.

‘I’ve only had three [fishing] trips in the last 28 days – and they were quite rough,’ he said.

‘There has been no weather at all where a migrant boat would have managed to cross in the last 28 days. When the weather has allowed, there’s been massive numbers [of migrants crossing].

‘It’s just as well we didn’t have a fine end of the year, like we did last year, otherwise they would have been in real trouble with their numbers.’

He said each inflatable boat was yesterday believed to be crammed with between 55 and 80 people, with an estimated 600 migrants making the crossing. 

‘People smugglers in France appear to have access to sophisticated meteorological information about conditions in the Channel’, he added.

‘It’s very strange how accurately these people smugglers seem to know what the weather is doing out in the middle of the Channel,’ he said. ‘I can only think they must have people giving them information on what the sea state is like. They seem to get it exactly right every time.’

Up until yesterday, 39,292 migrants have made the illegal crossing so far this year – well ahead of the 36,816 who crossed last year. The annual record stands at 45,755 – recorded at the end of 2022. 

A Home Office spokesman said: ‘The number of small boat crossings is shameful and the British people deserve better.

‘This Government is taking action. We have removed almost 50,000 people who were here illegally, and our historic deal with the French means those who arrive on small boats are now being sent back.’ 

The latest wave of small-boat crossings came as hard-Right activist Tommy Robinson led a carol service in central London attended by thousands of people yesterday.

Supporters of Robinson – whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – gathered in Whitehall for the event, which he insisted was a celebration of the Christian religion and ‘not about Islam, immigration, or the useless communists in control of our government’.

A counter-protest organised by Stand Up To Racism saw around 500 protesters gathering just a few hundred yards further down on Whitehall.