Dozens of Channel migrants, including children, arrive in Dover after a group was seen clambering off a French beach into rowing boats bound for the UK

Dozens of migrants from the Channel, including children, arrived in Dover today after a group were seen clambering off a French beach into rowing boats towards the UK – just days ago after sir Keir Starmer the abolished Tories‘ Rwanda plan.

For the second day in a row, people were ferried ashore at Dover Port despite the continuing wet and windy weather.

Pictures show young people in the migrant group wearing lifejackets, some even wrapped in blankets, as they entered Kent harbour in Border Force and RNLI lifeboats.

The arrivals came after three asylum seekers who had brought legal action over their possible deportation to Rwanda won a High Court ruling on Tuesday after the new Labour government decided to abolish the deportation policy.

More than 13,600 migrants have arrived in the UK this year after crossing the Channel.

According to government data, this is nine percent more than the number recorded in the same period last year (12,503) and four percent more than in the same period in 2022 (13,172).

Tuesday’s figures will be confirmed when the Interior Ministry publishes the next set of data on Wednesday.

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It comes after 65 people made the crossing in one boat yesterday, after a six-day break, the first crossings since Labour’s election victory.

This brings the total for 2024 so far to 13,639, a record number for the first six months of a calendar year.

Pictures show groups of people arriving from France, wearing life jackets and some wrapped in blankets, being dropped off a Border Force boat in Dover, Kent. Children are also seen being carried ashore.

The crossings resumed on the same day that Home Secretary Yvette Cooper established a Border Security Command to tackle the gangs orchestrating the crossings.

Ms Cooper yesterday called Rwanda’s migrant deportation programme a “complete scam” and said Labour would seek to claw back some of the £290m spent on it before it was scrapped.

Ms Cooper said she planned to conduct an audit of the programme to send cross-Channel boats to East Africa, which was scrapped by Sir Keir Starmer in one of his first decisions after taking office as No 10.

But almost a third of a billion pounds has already been donated to Kagame’s government, despite the fact that the only migrants to leave Britain were four volunteers.

Questions will be asked about how much can be recovered. But Ms Cooper told LBC radio: ‘We are checking the whole scheme… It has clearly been a complete scam.’

Ms Cooper said setting up the Border Security Command unit was Labour’s top priority on migration as she faced questions about the future of the Bibby Stockholm boat, which is used to house asylum seekers in Portland, Dorset.

She did not confirm whether the government would suspend the use of the boat, but told reporters: “We need to clear the backlog of Conservative asylum applications, but our first priority must be to strengthen border security. That’s why our first step is to set up a new border security command.”

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Over the weekend, Sir Keir Starmer said the stalled multi-million pound plan to send migrants to Rwanda was “dead and buried” and confirmed the deportation policy would be scrapped.

The prime minister said he was “not prepared to continue with gimmicks” as Labour announced plans to release the last two migrants held ahead of expected flights.

Asked if she had been in touch with Rwanda about winding down the plan and asking for the money back, Cooper replied: ‘Well, the Prime Minister has obviously set out the position on the Rwanda plan, whereas the Conservatives have been running this plan for two and a half years and only sent four volunteers and hundreds of millions of pounds.’

She said her “top priority” as new Home Secretary is to “strengthen Britain’s border security, which I believe we have been let down on for too long”.