The latest migration figures from the Home Office have shown Labour are continuing to make progress in a number of areas.
Small boat crossings, asylum claims and legal migration arrivals are all down in the year to June compared to the same period in 2025.
At the same time, the use of hotels to house asylum seekers has dropped over the last year whilst the government has made remarkable progress on reducing the backlog of asylum applications.
All of this is bad news for Reform UK and Nigel Farage, who have put immigration and small boat crossings at the centre of their policies.
Here are what this week’s migration figures revealed:
Small boat arrivals down
The number of small boat arrivals was 33,000 in the year to June 2026, a drop of 23% on the year before. These are the latest figures which show the trend in small boat arrivals has continued to be lower than last year.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said the government would not be “complacent” and that there is “more we must do.”
Asylum claims down
The number of people claiming asylum in the UK in the year to June 2026 was 86,000, down by 21% on the year before. About half of these applications cam from people who were already legally in the UK.
At the same time, the number of work, student and family visas granted over this period was also down.
Use of hotels to house asylum seekers down
The number of asylum seekers house in hotel accommodation has fallen by 50% in the year to June, with the number now at just over 16,000. This is also down 70% compared to the peak of 56,018 in September 2023.
Labour has pledged to end the use of hotel accommodation before the end of this parliament in 2019.
Asylum case backlog slashed
The backlog of undecided asylum cases fell by a huge two-thirds during Keir Starmer’s premiership, dropping from 118,882 to 40,168. This is the lowest level since June 2019 and a dramatic fall since the peak of 175,000 in June 2023.
All of the above comes off the back of deportations hitting their highest level in a decade, Labour managing to slash the cost of the asylum system by £1bn and net migration dropping to its lowest level since 2021.
The issue for Reform is this: if Labour continue to take control of the UK’s borders and the asylum system, Reform’s raison d’être starts to disappear. Their anti-immigration arguments and hard-line policies carry less impact if the party already in power are dealing with the issue.
Farage and Reform need the small boat crossings and rising immigration figures to help fuel their ‘invasion’ rhetoric and keep them riding high in the polls.
At this rate, Labour will make the party irrelevant.