Shabana Mahmood has dismissed suggestions that Britain should copy Spain’s approach to rapidly returning migrants who crossed into Ceuta, maintaining that the English Channel creates a fundamentally more complex challenge.
The Home Secretary argued that the small boats problem facing the UK cannot be compared to the situation at Spain’s North African exclave.
“I think what we’ve seen in Ceuta is unique to those particular circumstances,” she told the Telegraph.
She pointed to the shared land frontier between Morocco and Spain as the key distinction.
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The Labour Minister said: “That is different to a people smuggling trade that crosses the whole of the Channel – so you’re in both French waters and then English waters, and that makes the work that we do different and trickier in many ways.”
During a frantic 48-hour period on Thursday and Friday, more than 60,000 people surged from Morocco into the tiny Spanish territory, with entire families swimming, scaling fences and rushing the border crossing.
The scenes triggered alarm across the continent, with European leaders warning they could exclude Spain from free movement arrangements and introduce fresh border controls.
Spanish authorities responded by transporting tens of thousands of arrivals back into Morocco at pace, bypassing any formal asylum processing.
At least 57 people lost their lives during the chaos, with victims either drowning in the sea or being crushed against border fencing.
By contrast, migrants who reach British shores via the Channel must typically have their asylum claims assessed before any removal can proceed, a process that frequently stretches over months.
The UK’s current mechanism for returning Channel migrants to France operates on a strict reciprocal basis, permitting Britain to send back one irregular arrival for every asylum seeker it accepts from Paris.
Since this arrangement took effect on August 6 last year, just 921 small boat passengers had been transferred back to France as of June, while in exchange, Britain took in 896 asylum seekers under the same deal.
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Those numbers pale beside Spain’s response in Ceuta, where authorities drove tens of thousands back across the Moroccan border within hours of their arrival.
This comes as Andy Burnham has vowed to be “relentless” in dealing with the small boats crisis as 2,000 migrants broke into Britain over the English Channel during his first fortnight in No10.
The Prime Minister insisted “progress is being made” but admitted there was “more to be done” while visiting Dover.
“The number of crossings is down by 50 per cent this year compared with the same period in 2025 and the month we’ve just had,” the Prime Minister said.
“July has been the lowest number for six years of people crossing, so clearly progress is being made. But we’re not complacent.
“It’s why I am here. It’s why I’ve come down on Sunday to see the team, to listen to what they think needs to be done, what further can be done.”
“So we’re just going to be relentless,” he pledged.
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