According to a recent research, there are more illegal migrants living in Britain than in any other country in Europe. One in 100 people in the UK are estimated to be illegal migrants, numbering as high as 745,000, according to a study conducted by Oxford University specialists.This is higher than the upper estimate of 700,000 in Germany, which has the second-largest population of undocumented migrants in Europe, and more than twice as high as the 300,000 in France. The Home Office revealed that 973 people in 17 small boats crossed the English Channel on Saturday, making it the most number of migrants to cross each day this year.The overall number of persons who have crossed in 2024 is 26,612, which is 5% more than in 2023 at this point but 21% less than the record of 33,611 in 2022. Four fatalities were reported by French authorities on Saturday while attempting to cross the Channel, one of which was a two-year-old boy who was "trampled to death" in a boat.Senior Conservatives urged Sir Keir Starmer to reconsider Labour's strategy following the Prime Minister's abandonment of a plan that would have transported asylum applicants to Rwanda for processing. There is a lot of pressure on the government to take action against the people-smuggling groups that are causing the issue and to prosecute crimes committed by immigrants already in the United Kingdom. Last week, media revealed that one in fifty Albanians.

James Cleverly, the shadow home secretary, said: “We need to deter people from coming here illegally and to root them out of our economy when they are here.”

Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister, who has called for the UK to quit the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), said: “This is the highest number crossing the Channel in a single day for years. Sir Keir needs to rip up his dangerous so-called ‘plan’ on small boats. 

The up to 745,000 people estimated to have come to Britain illegally include foreign arrivals who have overstayed their visas, failed asylum seekers who have disappeared and some migrants who have crossed the Channel in small boats.

Labour has pledged to smash the people-smuggling gangs by setting up a Border Security Command to work with European and G7 partners and giving UK law enforcement and intelligence agencies new counter terror-style powers.

Sir Keir has rejected calls to quit the ECHR to help tackle the crisis, and at the weekend French and European sources told The Telegraph that Britain would only get an EU deal to send Channel migrants back to France if it remained in the European Court of Human Rights.

The UK government has increased the returns of illegal migrants and established a new Border Security Command to combat criminal smuggling gangs. The research, published by 18 institutions, estimated the number of illegal migrants in the UK between 594,000 and 745,000, ahead of Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. The UK's upper estimates accounted for a quarter of all illegal migrants in the 12 EU nations covered by the research. The 745,000 illegal migrants, equivalent to a city the size of Leeds, come on top of the overall backlog of 224,742 asylum seekers. Experts suggest the UK's illegal migrant population could reflect its bigger black economy, the government's reluctance to grant amnesties, and "hostile environment" policies. The research will form the basis for a new public database to assess the latest estimates of illegal migrants in European countries and North America.