Small boat claims in Conservative ad don’t reflect rise in crossings this year

A Conservative online election advert that has been published widely on Facebook claims that “small boat crossings are coming down” and also puts a figure on it, saying “small boats down 36%”. That figure also appears in a slightly different graphic shared by the Conservative party on Facebook and circulating among users on X (formerly Twitter).

We’ve seen the 36% figure—which appears to compare small boat arrivals in 2023 vs 2022—before, and wrote about it earlier this month.

It is true that in 2023 small boat crossings were down year-on-year. Government figures show a total of 29,437 people arrived in the UK by small boat crossing that year, a 36% decrease compared to 2022, when 45,774 made the journey.

But these aren’t the most recent available figures on small boat crossings—and the figures for crossings so far in 2024 show the numbers are higher than they were for the same period in 2023. 

As of 26 May there have been 10,448 people recorded arriving via small boats in 2024. That’s a 38% increase compared to the same period in the year before. It’s worth noting that these daily figures are provisional however, so may be updated as time goes on.

Update—the Conservatives have now responded to our questions about this claim—see their response.