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Police slow to respond to Dover protest, says council boss
BBC • • world
Key Points:
- Dover District Council leader Kevin Mills criticized the police response to a well-organized protest that blocked the Port of Dover for hours, saying officers were slow to act and caught off guard by the demonstrators.
- Hundreds of masked men chanting "stop the boats" caused major traffic disruptions from 07:00 to 11:30 BST, with protesters reportedly arriving in rental vans and parking in nearby villages, according to council sources.
- Kent Police described the event as a "spontaneous protest" with no arrests made, while Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds condemned the demonstration as intimidatory and not representative of peaceful protest.
- The anti-hate group Hope Not Hate attributed the protest to the Patriot Platform network, a coalition of anti-migrant groups, with far-right activists Tommy Robinson and Danny Thomas publicly praising the protest on social media.
- Reynolds criticized far-right figures involved, accusing them of exploiting followers for profit rather than addressing genuine national issues, and emphasized the government's focus on solving real problems affecting people's lives.
