The government has condemned far-right protesters who blocked roads and confronted riot police in Portsmouth over the weekend, describing their actions as "thuggish and intimidating". Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in the city after migrants arriving by small boat were brought ashore.
Treasury minister Emma Reynolds stated the demonstration had "crossed the line" of peaceful protest. Speaking to Sky News, Ms Reynolds said: "As a politician, I absolutely support the right to peaceful protest. But this has crossed the line. This is thuggish and intimidating behaviour."
The protests occurred after approximately 140 migrants, intercepted heading towards the Hampshire coast, disembarked near Eastney in Portsmouth. They are expected to be transferred to the Manston immigration centre in Kent for processing.
Riot police were deployed to manage the situation as demonstrators blocked roads for several hours, with footage showing protesters facing up to officers and chanting "stop the boats" on Sunday evening. The incident in Portsmouth followed a similar protest in Dover on Saturday, where masked individuals dressed in black also blocked a major road leading out of the port.
Donna Jones, the Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for Hampshire and Isle of Wight, highlighted the significant pressure the Portsmouth protest placed on emergency services. She confirmed that support, including public order police officers, was required from forces across the country, including the Metropolitan Police Service.
The PCC stated: "Last night we had mutual aid, public order police officers sent from police forces across the country including the Metropolitan Police Service. We also had a number of our own police officers, obviously, from Hampshire and the Isle of Wight Constabulary trying to take back control of the roads, forming a line and holding a few hundred protesters back."
Ms Jones also expressed concern that changing patterns in people trafficking, with destinations potentially shifting away from the Strait of Dover and spreading across England’s south coast, would pose a "significant issue" for the government. She warned of the potential for the number of protesters to grow if such incidents continue.
"My concern now, as a police and crime commissioner, is that we don’t have this repeated," Ms Jones told the BBC’s Today programme. While noting that the protesters were "largely peaceful" in making their point against Portsmouth becoming a destination, she reiterated the strain on resources.
The minister also told BBC Breakfast that while the British public has "legitimate concerns about immigration," these concerns "shouldn't be expressed in intimidating ways, in the way that we saw in Portsmouth overnight.”
