Hundreds of masked far-right protesters clashed with police on the Portsmouth waterfront on Sunday evening, prompting officers to deploy batons and pepper spray to hold back a crowd trying to stop a boatload of asylum seekers from being brought ashore. It was the second major anti-migration flashpoint in southern England in as many days, and it has left police facing pointed questions about how the disorder was allowed to unfold.
The unrest broke out after a large dinghy carrying an estimated 120 to 140 people was intercepted in the Channel following an unusually long, roughly ten-hour crossing that had departed from Normandy, farther west along the French coast than most small-boat launches. Lifeboats, a coastguard helicopter and a plane were used to bring the group ashore in Hampshire, an operation officials say may point to smuggling networks shifting to new departure points to avoid patrols.
Batons and Pepper Spray Used to Hold the Line
Footage from the scene near Eastney Beach showed demonstrators dressed mostly in black, many with their faces covered, chanting against the boat's arrival as officers with shields tried to stop the crowd from reaching the lifeboats and, later, from blocking buses meant to carry the new arrivals to a processing site. Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary said officers were pushed off motorbikes and struck with bricks during the standoff, and confirmed that batons and synthetic pepper spray were used to repel the crowd. Spencer Wragg, chair of the Hampshire police federation, said one of the injured officers had completed training only three days earlier, and described the confrontation as going well beyond anything resembling lawful protest.
No arrests had been made in Portsmouth by the time the standoff eased in the early hours of Monday, though the force said an investigation had been opened to identify those responsible for assaults on officers, damage to police vehicles and other offences committed during the unrest.
Second Blockade in as Many Days Raises Questions
The clashes in Portsmouth came less than 24 hours after a separate but apparently related group of masked demonstrators blockaded Dover, Britain's busiest ferry port, snarling traffic for travellers and freight lorries bound for France. Kent Police likewise made no arrests. The back-to-back disruptions have prompted Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs to press ministers on why officers appeared to have no advance warning of either demonstration. Dover's Labour MP, Mike Tapp, questioned why police were unaware of plans to blockade the port, while the Liberal Democrats' home affairs spokesperson, Max Wilkinson, asked how a masked group could shut down the port and then a second site could be blockaded the very next evening without any apparent intelligence beforehand.
Government Vows to Learn Lessons
Policing minister Sarah Jones told Parliament that work was under way to establish what had gone wrong and to ensure intelligence is shared more quickly across police forces. She condemned the organisers for stoking what she called 'racism and thuggery' and said anyone who crossed the line from peaceful protest into criminality would not be shielded from prosecution.
Daniel Thomas, known as 'Danny Tommo,' a far-right activist with ties to Tommy Robinson, the anti-Islam campaigner whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, has been named as having claimed a role in arranging the Portsmouth demonstration through a group called Patriot Platform. No formal misconduct referral has been announced over the officers' conduct, but the questions from MPs over Hampshire police's preparedness and use of force are likely to keep the force under scrutiny in the days ahead.
