What Happened in Portsmouth: Migrants Arrive, Protesters Block the Streets
Hundreds of far-right activists gathered in Portsmouth on 6 September 2026 after a single small boat carrying about 140 asylum seekers was stopped south of the Isle of Wight and brought to the Portsmouth coast by two RNLI lifeboats. The arrival set off a large response involving HM Coastguard, a helicopter, an aeroplane, and lifeboats, according to a Maritime and Coastguard Agency spokesperson The Guardian. It was reportedly the first time a boat this large carrying asylum seekers had been brought to Portsmouth, and the first time a large group of anti-migrant protesters tried to stop newly arrived asylum seekers from being processed.
About 500 protesters took to the streets, according to Sky News Sky News. Many wore all black and face masks, matching the look of protesters who blocked roads in Dover the day before, 5 September. The Portsmouth protest was the second major anti-migrant demonstration of the weekend. Hampshire police told people to avoid the area and put a dispersal order in place, which is a police power that lets officers order people to leave a specific area or face arrest. Protesters blocked roads for hours and said they would stay through the night to stop the new arrivals from being taken to a processing centre. A witness not involved with the protest said two police cars had their windscreens smashed and that the crowd broke through the police cordon at one point. Hundreds of masked men blocked a coach carrying migrants, a scene livestreamed by right-wing influencer Daniel Thomas, also known as Danny Tommo Metro.
Thomas is a former bodyguard of far-right activist Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon). During his livestream, he encouraged viewers to travel to Portsmouth and join the protest. He set up Patriot Platform, the group that blocked part of the port of Dover on 5 September. Thomas had previously launched Operation Overlord, a plan to send far-right activists to France to "stop the boats." French authorities banned him from France after he and supporters filmed themselves slashing abandoned dinghies on a French beach.
The Home Office planned to take the people on the boat to Manston, a site outside Ramsgate in Kent where small boat arrivals are usually processed. Rival pro- and anti-immigration demonstrations also gathered on the Portsmouth seafront, with the anti-immigration event organised by a group called Portsmouth Patriots BBC. Anti-asylum and anti-racist protesters clashed in Guildhall Square. Portsmouth had previously accused anti-asylum protesters of issuing threats and abuse at earlier seafront demonstrations Portsmouth News.
A government spokesperson condemned the protesters' "intimidating and thuggish behaviour."
On the same day, 6 September, 364 asylum seekers arrived in the UK by small boat across all routes, according to ITV News ITV News. As of that date, 28,072 people had crossed the 21-mile Dover Strait so far in 2026. Despite that total, small boat crossings in 2026 were down by more than 40% compared with the same period the year before. Since 2018, 94% of people arriving in the UK by small boat have had an asylum claim recorded, according to a government inspection report UK Government. An asylum claim is a formal request for protection made by someone who fears persecution in their home country.
The broader context here matters for several reasons. Most Channel crossings have come ashore around the Kent coast and the Dover Strait, where the processing site at Manston and the political tensions of Dover have absorbed the practical and protest fallout. A boat of 140 people being intercepted south of the Isle of Wight and brought to Portsmouth pushes that activity into a new area, and the protest response followed within hours.
The coordinated activist network around Daniel Thomas adds another dimension. With branded operations like Patriot Platform and Operation Overlord, and a track record of direct action in both the UK and France, this looks less like spontaneous local anger and more like organised, livestream-driven disruption aimed at physically blocking the asylum system. Think of it as activists trying to shut down a pipeline rather than simply protesting outside it.
The 40% drop in arrivals compared with the previous year complicates the picture. Protest activity appears to be intensifying even as crossings decline, suggesting the demonstrations are driven less by raw numbers than by the attention a single dramatic arrival can generate. Thomas's use of livestreaming to call supporters to a location in real time mirrors tactics seen during the August 2024 disorder and raises practical questions for police about how to manage sudden crowds at ports that were not previously arrival sites. The dispersal order and cordon breach in Portsmouth show the strain this places on local police forces not used to being on the front line of Channel migration politics.
