Comments

You have commented 375 times on Rantburg.

Your Name

Your e-mail (optional)

Website (optional)

	My Original Nic Pic-a-Nic Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Foto

Submit your comments on this article

Britain

'Stop them!' Britons despair over migrants and attack police

2026-09-10

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
by Mikhail Kolovangin

[REGNUM] The past weekend has demonstrated how deeply the migrant crisis is dividing British society – and how clumsily the state is trying to cope with it.

In just two days, two major protests against illegal immigration took place across the country—in Dover and Portsmouth. Both were accompanied by clashes with police and received widespread media attention.

SIEGE OF DOVER
On the morning of September 5, hundreds of people in black clothes and balaclavas blocked access roads to the port of Dover, the UK's largest ferry hub, linking southern England with France.

Protesters linked arms, blocking the A20 and chanting, "Stop the boats," and "Whose streets? Our streets!" According to National Highways, the closure created a 4-mile-long traffic jam, with delays reaching 45 minutes.

Port officials said traffic was "stopped due to ongoing public disorder" and Kent police described the protest as "spontaneous".

The Patriot Platform network group, which formed in July and united activists from various anti-migrant movements, claimed responsibility for organizing the blockade.

Despite the scale of the protest, no arrests were made: police escorted the crowd to the train station, and service was restored by midday. Ferry operators promised to transfer late passengers to the next service.

The protest took place without a single poster or banner – Dover County Council Conservative leader Chris Vinson stated that the anti-immigrant nature of the protest could only be judged by “slogans and indirect signs.”

To be fair, they aren’t getting donations from billionaires or China, nor help organizing from protest professionals.

BROKEN GLASS
The next day, the conflict moved to Portsmouth. A rubber dinghy carrying approximately 140 migrants was intercepted off the coast after it had drifted into British waters following an operation involving two Royal National Lifesaving Society boats.

The Home Office plan was for arrivals to be bused to the reception centre in Manston, the standard processing point for those crossing the channel on small boats.

However, the convoy of buses was blocked by hundreds of protesters who had descended on the city following calls from activist Daniel Thomas, an associate of anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson.

On air, Thomas declared, "All the roads are blocked; they'll never be able to leave here." The situation escalated to the point that the police were called in. As a result, the windshields of two police cars were smashed, and at one point, the protesters managed to break through the police cordon.

The demonstrators had declared their readiness to remain there all night, but around 3:00 a.m. on Monday, police imposed an Article 14 restriction, allowing them to disperse the crowd. Article 14 is a section of the UK's Public Order Act 1986 that gives police the power to impose conditions on public gatherings, including restrictions on the location, duration, and number of participants.

Police may impose such requirements if a senior officer determines that an assembly could lead to serious public disorder or property damage. Another reason arises when participants attempt to intimidate someone or violate their rights.

So law enforcement officers demanded that the protesters disperse and clear the area around the police cordon and the buses carrying migrants.

The link between the actions in Dover and Portsmouth was Thomas, who had previously travelled to France as part of the Stop the Boats campaign and damaged boats abandoned by migrants.

A Hampshire and Isle of Wight Police spokesman said several officers were injured and required medical attention during the overnight standoff on September 6-7, while police and coastguard vehicles were damaged.

In addition, police used pepper spray and water cannons. An investigation has been launched to identify the attackers and those responsible for damaging the equipment.

GEOGRAPHY IS EXPANDING
The events in Dover and Portsmouth are far from a random outburst.

A similar, but far more destructive, scenario unfolded in the summer of 2025 at the Bell Hotel in Epping, where the arrest of a migrant on charges of sexually assaulting a teenager sparked weekly protests that escalated into a protracted standoff with police.

Over the course of several months, dozens of police officers and hotel security guards were injured, more than 30 arrests were made, and policing costs reached £1.7 million.

Several participants in those events later received prison sentences for assaulting police and damaging vehicles, including breaking windows and flattening the tires of patrol cars.

In the summer of 2026, a similar wave swept through Thetford and the village of Barnham in Norfolk, where protests against the accommodation of migrants at RAF Barnham escalated into full-blown riots: activists threw stones and bottles at buildings and smashed windows. Police officers were injured by flying glass.

More than 20 people were arrested on charges including racially motivated offenses and planning to commit aggravated robbery.

So the conflict between protesters and security forces in Britain is a systemic trend of the last year and a half.

WHO BENEFITS?
Not only is the wave of discontent with immigration policy itself indicative, but also the way the authorities and major media outlets are responding to it. Instead of discussing the causes of the tension, public anger is methodically directed at the protesters themselves.

Any inconvenience to passengers, drivers, and businesses is presented primarily as a consequence of activists' actions, rather than as the result of the authorities' long-standing failure to address the problem that brought people onto the streets.

Meanwhile, official statistics show a nearly 43% decline in the number of Channel crossings over the past year. This, for some reason, hasn't stopped tensions from rising. Therefore, these data are highly questionable.

The British political system effectively pits different groups of society against each other: local residents against migrants, those dissatisfied with the protests against the protesters.

The ruling apparatus benefits by not having to answer for its own decisions. A powerful media outlet is used to create a convenient image—condemning "troublemakers" while simultaneously declaring the "right to peaceful protest." This is a commonplace formula that absolves the authorities themselves of responsibility.

The chain of conflicts that began in Epping in 2025 has now engulfed several regions of Britain and continued in Dover and Portsmouth.

Each new episode demonstrates the same pattern: the mobilization of disgruntled citizens, violent confrontations with the police, dozens of damaged cars and broken windows—and the same official rhetoric condemning the unrest without a substantive answer to the question of why the problem has not been resolved after years of promises.

As long as the government prefers to manage public irritation rather than eliminate its cause, the degree of mutual hatred in the country will only increase.

Well said.

Posted by:badanov

#2 comments); ?>werwer

Posted by: Abu Uluque 2026-09-10 12:06

#1 comments); ?>werwer

Posted by: Grom the Reflective 2026-09-10 05:54

00:00