More likely police action is disrupting the traffickers. But like the drugs trade, they will soon regroup - there is too much money* to be made from this *Not just the charged fares, but also all the consequent black market/criminal activity it enables in the UK inc modern slavery

There were barely any of these crossings before 2020, Brexiters were so allergic to anything with the word Europe in it the gangs knew they could do as they pleased because we wouldn't co-ordinate with France. That's all changed now, it used to be lorries before boats but that got too tricky.

Albanians invented the boat crossings pre-Brexit - I bet if we went into history we'd find they had developed the same technique to get into Italy before they started on the Channel. They are hard, resourceful people.

I did research on this in the 1990s...

There are two reasons driving this trade - People want to come to UK, will pay a fare & accept some risk - Boat operators can exploit such people once they're in the UK We should be doing more to bear down on the UK's undoubtedly large criminal & illegal black market that acts as a magnet

For the 60% who get their asylum claim accepted, the shorter the period between arriving & gaining asylum, the less opportunity criminals have to exploit them, and the less they get bound into black market. Part of the route into UK society should be training & other help into legal paid employment.

For those whose claim is rejected, but cannot immediately be deported, we need some means to keeping tabs on them It is a disgrace that some migrants' cases take over two years to settle - this should not be permitted - whether it is the applicant delaying or UK bureaucracy that is the cause.

Didn't the Tories cynically slow asylum processing to a trickle in an attempt to sell their Rwanda plan to the electorate?

Course they did - and jammed up the legal process by neglect to further accumulate a massive backlog The Tories governed in bad faith - worse & worse from the Liar becoming PM right to the end in 2024 under the little man in trousers a little too short in the leg