Neil brands Kinnock’s EU boats claim a straightforward lie

Andrew Neil has branded Stephen Kinnock’s claim that there were no boat people because Britain was in the European Union a straightforward lie. The veteran broadcaster set out the record on X after the Labour minister insisted small-boat crossings stayed near zero in 2016 thanks to EU collaboration. Neil pointed out that illegal immigrants flooded in by lorry, train and car long before the Channel became the preferred route. They disappeared into towns and cities and could not be properly counted. When technology made those land methods far harder, the traffickers switched to boats. Because the vessels are usually stopped on arrival, the counting is easier. Nothing to do with being in or out of the EU.

Official Home Office small-boat figures only begin in 2018, with 299 arrivals that year. Full Fact records isolated cases before 2016, including nine incidents between 2014 and May 2016, yet the numbers stayed tiny until after 2018. Pre-2018 irregular arrivals were dominated by lorries, containers and trains. Thousands were detected every year. Roughly 150,000 attempts were logged at the Calais and Dunkirk juxtaposed controls between 2016 and 2019. Numbers then rose sharply to 8,500 in 2020 and peaked near 46,000 in 2022.

Experts and Home Affairs reports attribute the shift mainly to tightened security and scanners on the land routes plus the smugglers’ adaptation. The 2020 spike also coincided with Covid restrictions on other travel. Dublin returns existed but were low-volume. Britain was often a net recipient and the success rate on requests sat around 7 to 10 per cent. The system ended with the transition period, yet the major rise began while the United Kingdom was still inside it.

Land routes hid the real pressure

In 2016 the main practical tool was the bilateral Le Touquet Agreement with France, not some pure EU invention. UK officers operated in Calais, Dunkirk and Coquelles. Over 56,000 clandestine attempts, mostly lorries, were stopped that year. Heavy British funding paid for fencing, scanners, dogs and lighting. Dublin III allowed returns of asylum seekers to the first EU country of entry. That year Britain made about 4,200 transfer requests but secured only around 360 actual transfers out. Volumes were modest. The primary reason boats stayed rare in 2016 was the effectiveness of those physical controls on the land routes the gangs preferred at the time.

Small boats were negligible then. Isolated cases only. Official counting starts in 2018. The dominant routes were lorries, trains and cars. Boats became the main method later as security on land tightened further after 2016, including the clearance of the Calais camp. The sharp rise began in late 2018 while Britain was still inside Dublin and the transition period. Dublin offered a limited returns mechanism. It never stopped the pressure.

Britain cannot run an honest border policy while ministers rewrite the past to suit a rejoin argument. The public watched the lorries for years. They know the boats did not appear from nowhere the day the UK left. Sovereignty means counting every arrival and removing those with no right to stay, not pretending an old Brussels rule kept the Channel empty.

Neil’s post drew strong support on X for spelling out the method switch and the earlier undercounting. A minority insisted Kinnock was technically accurate on near-zero boats in 2016 or that EU returns gave some limited leverage. The exchange followed an audience member on BBC Question Time who needled the Kinnock family and called the EU a corrupt old boys’ network. Kinnock lost his temper. Fiona Bruce tried to calm the panel during the rejoin debate.

Stephen Kinnock’s claim that there were no boat people because we were in the European Union is a straightforward lie. Illegal immigrants flooded in by lorry, train and cars. They disappeared into towns/cities and couldn’t be properly counted. When advances in technology made… https://t.co/ywEKuZ5pOY

— Andrew Neil (@afneil) October 16, 2026

Original source: Andrew Neil (@afneil)