Anti-immigration protest in Portsmouth against the transfer of migrants

Hundreds of anti-immigration demonstrators gathered overnight from Sunday to Monday in Portsmouth, in the south of England, to try to prevent the transfer of migrants who arrived across the Channel on a small boat. This rally comes the day after the port of Dover was also blocked by anti-migrant demonstrators.

According to local police, a major device was deployed near Eastney Marina, in Portsmouth, “after the arrival of a boat having crossed the Channel”. In the morning, the French prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea indicated that a boat with 140 people on board had left an area west of the Bay of Seine to reach England.

“Intimidating and brutal behavior”

Protesters, many of whom were dressed in black and had their faces masked according to images posted on social media, blocked the roads leading to the site for several hours, while police equipped with riot shields formed a security cordon around buses intended to transport migrants.

A spokesperson for the British Home Office on Monday condemned "the intimidating and brutal behavior we witnessed in Portsmouth last night." “The right to peaceful protest is fundamental to our democracy, but it must never cross the line into disorder,” he added. The Interior Ministry said the migrants who arrived on Sunday had left their disembarkation location and were being transferred to be processed according to the usual procedure.

Authorities note an increase in the number of passengers by canoe

Arrivals in this region of southern England are extremely rare, with migrant boats generally crossing the Channel further east, where the distance between the French and British coasts is shortest. “It is extremely worrying to see illegal migrant crossings so far west,” local Conservative MP Joe Robertson reacted on X. “We need to know exactly what happened and whether smugglers are using new routes for these large inflatable boats,” he added.