BBC publishes misinformation about small boat crossings

The BBC, which has been accused of acting more like a spin doctor than an impartial broadcaster in its recent coverage, has not named Israel as the perpetrator in 50% of reported Israeli attacks on civilians in Gaza, and has also been getting things wrong on immigration.

Two recent immigration errors reveal a similar pattern of failing to correct misleading claims or of wrongly stating figures.

The BBC: propping up the colonialist system

The first involved unchallenged misinformation from Nigel Farage about why net migration is falling. The second involved wrongly stating small boat arrivals were 100,625 when the correct figure was 41,472, a staggering 143% error.

In the first instance, speaking to Nick Robinson on his Political Thinking Podcast back in February, racist-in-chief Nigel Farage claimed net migration had fallen due to an “exodus” of people leaving the UK.

BBC’s Nick Robinson did not correct or contextualise this. In fact, Office for National Statistics (ONS) data for the year to June 2025 shows that net migration fell by two-thirds, with 90% of that drop due to fewer people arriving. Immigration fell by 401,000. Farage’s framing was therefore misleading and went unchallenged.

The BBC has since added this episode to its official Corrections and Clarifications page, dated 17 April 2026.

The second instance took place on the BBC News website article (14 April 2026), where the BBC had initially reported that the number of small boat crossings had increased dramatically, when in fact the opposite was true. The story, which opened with the declining number of asylum hotels in the UK, did not appear on the Corrections and Clarifications page as of 30 April, although the news story itself includes a correction note.

That note, added on 21 April, acknowledges that the piece initially claimed 100,625 small boat arrivals in 2025 when the correct figure was 41,472.

The mistakes have been picked up by the media and commentators, though.

SNP criticises the error

Peter Wishart, MP of Perthshire for the Scottish National Party (SNP), shared the National’s coverage of the BBC’s second error and said:

This is totally shocking. The far right depend on disinformation to conduct their ugly business and promote their division. Now the BBC gets small boat crossings wrong by 140%. Do they not know how sensitive this debate is. https://t.co/JQVGt0dzx3

— Pete Wishart (@PeteWishart) April 28, 2026

Sunder Katwala was the one who had pointed out the second mistake to the BBC.

He posted on X:

I have asked the BBC to correct this mistake: in trying to give context, it reports 100k small boat crossings in 2025 (There were 41,472, which is a lot, but not 100k, but different statistics have got garbled up here). https://t.co/ZDYptPCXUV pic.twitter.com/4OUPJQr2D8

— Sunder Katwala (@sundersays) April 18, 2026

Farage’s misleading claim about an “exodus” went unchallenged on air. The small boat figure was overstated by 143% on the website. Neither error would have overstated the case for lower immigration or reduced crossings.

This pattern of asymmetric inaccuracy becomes harder to dismiss as mere coincidence when set alongside the BBC’s coverage of Gaza. There, too, the corporation has failed to name Israel as the perpetrator in 50% of reported Israeli attacks on civilians.

In all cases, the BBC’s errors ran in one direction: inflating public concern. When a public service, publicly-funded broadcaster is behaving like a propagandist for the colonialist far-right, it is time to ask whether or not  it can even be trusted.

Featured image via the Canary