2023 still saw close to 30,000 people crossing in a single year. The 29,437 people who got to England via this route last year was more than the 28,526 who crossed in 2021.

On top of that are the 45,774 who crossed in 2022, a scandal that has led to an obscene £8 Million per day being spent on hotel accommodation.

In fact the boat crossings have now amounted to some 114,345 people arriving in our country via this route since 2018.

Of course the Conservative Government – and a variety of Prime Ministers – have talked a good game on stopping the boats.

Rishi Sunak has made this a key campaign pledge – even as the boats have kept on coming.

The Government have tried to claim credit when the crossings have temporarily halted. The reality is it has more to do with the weather than anything else.

We have also heard so much about the Rwanda plan that still hasn’t actually been implemented.

Suella Braverman has called for the UK to leave the ECHR after their block intervention on that policy, but of course she has since been sacked as Home Secretary.

So the outlook in 2024 is pretty bleak. This is disastrous for the Government in what is likely to be a General Election year, with both Conservative and Leave voters now ranking immigration and asylum as their number one issue.

As GB News recently reported, the warnings are now that 2024 could see a further 35,000 illegal immigrants cross to England on boats.

The Border Force projection even includes a worse-case scenario of another 50,000 crossing, which would be a new shameful record.

No surprise then that so many Conservative voters are utterly fed up with the total inaction we’ve seen when it comes to actually stopping this crisis.

If those sorts of projected numbers actually play out in 2024 and Rishi Sunak leads the Tories to a crushing election defeat, the small boats chaos will have been a key reason why.