Hundreds of protesters block roads in Portsmouth

The British government has condemned what it called hooliganism after hundreds of protesters blocked roads in Portsmouth and threatened to stop asylum seekers from leaving the southern English city.

The asylum seekers had arrived by boat. Demonstrators gathered on Sunday evening, making it the second major anti-migrant protest in southern England that weekend. The previous day, large groups of masked men had blocked access to the port of Dover.

Videos posted on social media showed many protesters dressed in black with their faces covered, confronting police officers carrying riot shields. Officers formed a cordon around buses intended to take the asylum seekers to a centre where their claims would be processed. Police said the migrants were successfully transported.

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We condemn the intimidation and hooliganism we saw in Portsmouth last night. The right to peaceful protest is one of the foundations of our democracy, but protest must never turn into public-order offences.

French authorities had earlier reported that a boat carrying 140 people left the Seine Bay in Normandy for the southern English coast. Such boats rarely reach Hampshire, the county that includes Portsmouth. They usually arrive farther east, in Kent, where the Channel crossing between France and Britain is narrower.

The unusual route has raised concern among local officials. Conservative MP Joe Robertson wrote on X that it was “extremely worrying” that the crossing had taken place so far west, and said authorities needed to establish whether smugglers were using new routes for large inflatable boats.

Britain is seeking ways to curb the dangerous journeys. The Home Office said crossings fell in August to their lowest level since records began in 2018, while migrant arrivals were at their lowest since 2020. Officials have nevertheless recorded a growing number of people travelling in individual boats. Home Office figures cited in the report show that 16,513 migrants had crossed the Channel by boat since the start of the year.

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It is extremely worrying that the illegal migrant crossing took place so far west. We need to establish exactly what happened and whether people smugglers have started using new routes for the large inflatable boats.