Details of the latest arrivals will make grim reading for new Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who has yet to make any comment on the migrant crisis since entering Downing Street.<\/p>\n
The French lifeboat service was alerted just before 6.30am as the dinghy headed out to sea.<\/p>\n
A spokesman said: “The situation is alarming, unique, and exceptional. Around 150 people are on board, and one of the floats is leaking. Despite this, the vessel continues on its way.<\/p>\n
“The vessel is already well out to sea. We are astonished by the number of people on board this inflatable boat.<\/p>\n
“The crew is constantly trying to inflate the side float, while taking in significant amounts of water.”<\/p>\n
![\"\\u200bThe](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/u200bthe-so-called-mega-dinghy.jpg\")
The mega dinghy was launched at 6:30am this morning<\/p>\n
| <\/p>\n
FRENCH SNS LIFEBOAT SERVICE<\/p>\n
The French patrol ship Minckis reported to have handed out life jackets to a number of migrants who had none.<\/p>\n
Although the dinghy appeared to be sinking at one point, those onboard managed to pump more air inside and right the vessel again.<\/p>\n
Another French patrol ship, the Abeille Normandie arrived on scene to assist.<\/p>\n
After more than four hours at sea, the migrant vessel made it to UK waters.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/the-migrant-vessel-made-it-to-uk-waters.png\")
The migrant vessel made it to UK waters<\/p>\n
| <\/p>\n
GB NEWS<\/p>\n
It is understood that some of the 150 on board were taken off and loaded on to the French patrol ships.<\/p>\n
But others refused to leave and were picked up by the Border Security Command vessel Contender.<\/p>\n
They are now en route back to the port of Dover.<\/p>\n
Today’s figures breaks the previous record number of migrants on a single mega dinghy was reached on July 12 when 128 illegal immigrants made it to UK waters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Around 165 illegal migrants have arrived in the UK on a “mega dinghy”, smashing the record for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":707435,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,285,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-707434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-migrant-crisis","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=707434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/707435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}