The government has condemned the “thuggish and intimidating behaviour” of far-right activists who blocked roads in Portsmouth after a boat carrying asylum seekers arrived in the city, two days after similar scenes in Dover.
Hundreds of men, some dressed in black and wearing balaclavas, tried to stop the arrivals from being transported for processing until 3am, when police removed them with threats of arrest. A witness said two police car windscreens were smashed.
The crowd was seemingly organised by Daniel Thomas, a far-right agitator closely linked to Tommy Robinson, the longtime anti-Islam and far-right figure whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.
Thomas was also behind the scenes in Dover on Saturday, when crowds of people dressed in black and wearing balaclavas blocked the road around the port.
Thomas, who uses the name Danny Tommo on social media, was recorded telling the crowd that Portsmouth was “now ground zero” for the arrival of asylum seekers on boats from France, saying “enough is enough” and “Dover was a dummy run”.
Emma Reynolds, the chief secretary to the Treasury, told Sky News: “As a politician, I absolutely support the right to peaceful protest, but this has crossed the line. This is thuggish and intimidating behaviour.”
Asked if the police had been taken by surprise, as they appeared to have been in Dover, Reynolds rejected the suggestion, saying officers had dealt with events well.
She added: “This is a concern. People have seen the images on their screens. This was very intimidating behaviour.”
Ministers have faced some criticism over the events in Dover, where what was in effect a far-right vigilante group arrived secretly in vans before causing significant disruption.
A Home Office spokesperson condemned the “intimidating and thuggish behaviour we saw in Portsmouth last night”, saying everyone who had arrived on the boat had left the area and was being “transported for processing in the usual way”.
In a livestream from the scene, Thomas encouraged viewers to travel to Portsmouth to join the protest. He has recently established Patriot Platform, which blocked part of the port of Dover on Saturday. He previously launched Operation Overlord, which planned to send far-right activists to France.
While the number of people arriving in small boats this year has fallen by more than 40% compared with the same period last year, ministers will be alarmed by the apparent use of different routes by people smugglers, moving beyond the Dover area.
Donna Jones, the Conservative police and crime commissioner for Hampshire, said a boat carrying 140 people left somewhere near Cherbourg in France at about 1am on Sunday morning, before entering the Solent, near Portsmouth, about 10 hours later.
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She said the town did not have the infrastructure in place in Dover to process arrivals, telling BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “My big concern now is that Portsmouth does not become a destination of choice for the people traffickers who are trying to bring people across to Britain.”
She did not condemn the far-right activists, saying: “Largely they were peaceful. They were there making their point, but they don’t want Portsmouth to become a destination.”
Speaking on Today, Nick Lowles, the chief executive of Hope Not Hate, which charts far-right activity, said there appeared to have been a failure of intelligence with both protests, noting that Thomas had agitated for people to join the riots this summer and in 2024.
He said: “To have 300, 400 people with balaclavas marching down the streets, stopping traffic. You know, it’s not just good enough. We need to call these people out for their politics and for the type of Britain that they want to see.”
He added: “We’ve got different ways to register our protest. We do not go on the street. We do not burn people out of their houses. We do not cause trouble and threaten to fight the police.
“And more importantly, the images that we saw at the weekend, just like the images we saw earlier this year and last year and in 2024 is creating a climate of fear among migrants and immigrants, fear among people of colour. I think the government needs to be far more robust in standing up against this.”
