Masked protesters disrupt operations at UK’s Dover port

Hundreds of masked people dressed in black blocked access to Dover port on Saturday, briefly halting transport between France and the United Kingdom.

Dover port said traffic was moving smoothly again around midday, several hours after protesters blocked the roads leading to the terminal. Local police said nobody had been arrested and that the demonstration, which initially blocked all roads into and out of the terminal, had been dispersed.

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Stop the boats.

Images posted online showed crowds of masked, black-clad protesters occupying roads around the port, where ferries travel between southern England and northern France. In a livestream apparently filmed by one of the demonstrators, men standing behind a police barricade chanted, “Stop the boats.”

The protest focused on the long-running political dispute over small boats carrying migrants and asylum seekers across the Channel to southeast England. The centre-left Labour government said crossings this summer were at their lowest level since 2019, partly because of cooperation agreements with the French government.

A government spokesperson condemned the protest. A Reform UK lawmaker called the incident shameful, while several local politicians described the masked protesters’ actions as intimidating. Far-right anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson supported the demonstration, calling it “a warning shot from British patriots to the ruling elite.”

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A warning shot from British patriots to the ruling elite.

One passenger affected by the disruption told Sky News that passengers had been stuck on a boat in Dunkirk for more than an hour and a half. “Stop the boats? Not those ones!” the unidentified passenger said.

Dover port says it handles more than 10,000 freight vehicles and 15,000 passenger vehicles a day during the summer. It carries one-third of Britain’s trade with the European Union and is the United Kingdom’s largest international ferry port.

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Stop the boats? Not those ones!