Anti-migrant demonstration at the port of Dover: maritime traffic briefly interrupted

Hundreds of anti-migrant protesters blocked access to the port of Dover, in southern England, on Saturday morning, briefly interrupting maritime traffic between France and the United Kingdom. The port indicated in the middle of the day that traffic was “fluid” again, a few hours after having been “interrupted”, with all roads to the port having been blocked by demonstrators. Local police said they were “dialogue” with the demonstrators.

Images shared online showed scores of people dressed in black and wearing balaclavas flocking to the roads surrounding the port which connects the south of England to the north of France. In a video likely filmed by a protester, several men chanted “Stop the boats” as they faced a police cordon. The British government condemned the protest.

“A little late at departures”

“The right to peaceful protest is fundamental to our democracy, but we condemn the behavior observed in Dover as well as the disruption caused,” said a government spokesperson quoted by the PA agency. The latter confirmed that access to the port had been restored and that traffic had resumed. On the French side, a spokesperson for the port of Boulogne-Calais told AFP that the port was operating “normally” apart from “a little delay in departures”.

A first ferry from the DFDS company, the “DFDS Côte des Flandres” was due to set sail shortly before noon in Calais to reach Dover more than an hour behind its initially planned schedule, noted an AFP correspondent.

Decline in the number of migrant arrivals

Successive British governments have all promised to curb illegal crossings of the Channel, a subject that has become highly flammable and which has largely fueled the rise of the anti-immigration Reform UK party in recent years.

According to figures published at the end of August by the British authorities, asylum requests fell by 21% in the United Kingdom between the end of June 2025 and the end of June 2026, to their lowest level since 2022, while arrivals of migrants on small boats fell by 23%.

According to figures from the British Home Office, 16,513 migrants have crossed the Channel since the start of the year aboard small boats. The port of Dover handles more than 10,000 goods vehicles and 15,000 private vehicles per day during the summer months, and handles a third of the trade in goods between Great Britain and the EU, according to the port platform.