LONDON, Jan 1, 2026 (BSS/AFP) - The second-highest annual number of migrants arrived on UK shores in small boats since records were started in 2018, the government was to confirm Thursday. The tally comes as Brexit firebrand Nigel Farage's anti-immigration party Reform UK surges in popularity ahead of bellwether local elections in May. With Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer increasingly under pressure over the thorny issue, his interior minister Shabana Mahmood has proposed a drastic reduction in protections for refugees and the ending of automatic benefits for asylum seekers. Home Office data as of midday on Wednesday showed a total of 41,472 migrants landed on England's southern coast in 2025 after making the perilous Channel crossing from northern France. The record of 45,774 arrivals was recorded in 2022 under the last Conservative government. The Home Office is due to confirm the final figure for 2025 later Thursday. Former Tory prime minister Rishi Sunak vowed to "stop the boats" when he was in power. Ousted by Starmer in July 2024, he later said he regretted the slogan because it was too "stark" and "binary" and lacked sufficient context "for exactly how challenging" the goal was. Adopting his own "smash the gangs" slogan, Starmer pledged to tackle the problem by dismantling the people smuggling networks running the crossings but has so far had no more success than his predecessor. Reform has led Starmer's Labour Party by double-digit margins in opinion polls for most of 2025. In a New Year message, Farage predicted that if Reform got things "right" at the forthcoming local elections "we will go on and win the general election" due in 2029 at the latest. Without addressing the migrant issue directly, he added: "We will then absolutely have a chance of fundamentally changing the whole system of government in Britain." In his own New Year message, Starmer insisted his government would "defeat the decline and division offered by others". Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch, meanwhile, urged people not to let "politics of grievance tell you that we're destined to stay the same". - Protests - The small boat figures come after Home Secretary Mahmood in November said irregular migration was "tearing our country apart". In early December, an interior ministry spokesperson called the number of small boat crossings "shameful" and said Mahmood's "sweeping reforms" would remove the incentives driving the arrivals. A returns deal with France had so far resulted in 153 people being removed from the UK to France and 134 being brought to the UK from France, border security and asylum minister Alex Norris said. "Our landmark one-in one-out scheme means we can now send those who arrive on small boats back to France," he said. The past year has seen multiple protests in UK towns over the housing of migrants in hotels. Amid growing anti-immigrant sentiment, in September up to 150,000 massed in central London for one of the largest-ever far-right protests in Britain, organised by activist Tommy Robinson. Asylum claims in Britain are at a record high, with around 111,000 applications made in the year to June 2025, according to official figures as of mid-November. Labour is currently taking inspiration from Denmark's coalition government -- led by the centre-left Social Democrats -- which has implemented some of the strictest migration policies in Europe. Senior British officials recently visited the Scandinavian country, where successful asylum claims are at a 40-year low. But the government's plans will likely face opposition from Labour's more left-wing lawmakers, fearing that the party is losing voters to progressive alternatives such as the Greens.