Full Fact, the UK’s largest fact checking charity, has compiled a roundup of claims from the last few days, including on small boat crossings and a viral Nato video.
Small boat crossings did not start after the Brexit referendum
The Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesperson, Max Wilkinson, told his party conference last week: “Before the (Brexit) referendum, not a single small boat crossed the Channel.” But that is not true.
The Government only publishes official data on small boat arrivals from 2018 onwards, and the number did rise substantially in the 2020s. But there is plenty of evidence of crossings taking place before then, and before the referendum in June 2016.
A 2020 report from the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration says the Home Office “was aware of isolated cases of migrants arriving in the UK clandestinely by small boats before 2014/15”, and mentions “nine confirmed incidents of migrants reaching the UK having crossed the Channel in a small vessel” between July 2014 and May 2016.
In April 2016, it was reported that migrants were paying people smugglers to transport them across the Channel in small boats – and Border Force vessels had been patrolling the Channel for this reason since at least August 2014.
The International Organisation for Migration’s missing migrants data also records several incidents of drowning on the “Mainland Europe to the UK” route in 2014, 2015 and early 2016.
Evidence of earlier crossings
Indeed, the Migration Observatory has said reports of these types of Channel crossing “go back over 50 years”.
By way of example, we can see that politicians said asylum seekers had been trying to cross the Channel in rubber dinghies back in December 2001. And eight Pakistani men arrived in Sandwich Bay, Kent, in August 1967, which the home secretary at the time said was the second incident of its kind.
The evidence does suggest that small boat crossings became much more common after the Brexit referendum, and specifically after 2018. A report from the Home Affairs Committee says that until 2018, “irregular migration on a substantial scale focused heavily on ferry and rail routes, with only a handful crossing the Channel in small boats each year”.
Full Fact contacted Mr Wilkinson for comment.
Viral Nato video is not new
A viral video featuring Nato soldiers is circulating online with the claim that it is “a new promotional clip” from the military alliance.
But that is not the case – while the video is from Nato, it is not new.
Nato originally posted the video on its social media channels in summer 2024 to mark the alliance’s 75th anniversary. The caption said the video was about “protecting our freedom, democracy and our way of life for over 75 years”.
Several social media posts which we’ve seen sharing the video in recent days claim: “Nato just dropped this new promotional clip – to support all the other War Propaganda currently being fed for the masses, as Europe prepares for war with Russia.”
One of the posts, on X, has had over 1.4 million views.
We have not found any evidence that Nato has shared the video recently.
The claims come amid recent media coverage of the UK Government’s plan for a national resilience public awareness campaign to “inform the public of the small but important steps they can take to be prepared in case of emergencies and disruption”, which could arise from a range of threats including cyber attacks or severe weather events.
