by John Gustavsson, Restoring the West
Small-boat crossings persist because of political decisions, and Britain has the power to reverse them.
Responding to: Wednesday briefing: Why small boat crossings are here to stay by Hettie O’Brien; Published in The Guardian on October 14, 2026
The core disagreement: Small-boat crossings are not an inevitable consequence of an unstable world. They persist because Britain fails to deter them and refuses to recognize the crisis as self-inflicted.
WHAT THEY GOT RIGHT:
The “one in, one out” scheme, under which France agreed to take back small-boat migrants in exchange for Britain accepting other migrants from France, was doomed from the start. It could never operate at the scale required.
WHERE THEY GO WRONG:
O’Brien presents small-boat crossings as a fact of life, “a reflection of an increasingly unstable world. No matter the increase in security or threats of deportation, people will keep trying to claim asylum.” However, asylum migration to the West correlates only loosely with global instability.