Just before 7am on Saturday 5 September, a few hundred fascists marched from Dover Priory rail station to the port, shouting ‘Stop the Boats!’ Clad head to toe in black, wearing balaclavas and masks, the paramilitary-style force blocked roads to the ferry terminal for four and a half hours. No arrests were made.
This was a planned provocation by the recently formed Patriot Platform, led by Danny Thomas. He boasted beforehand on social media that ‘men [sic] from every part of the country will be there’, but warned that this one would be strictly non-violent: ‘What do you think would happen if we were violent? We’d all get nicked.’
Indeed, violence did soon break out, not in Dover but in Portsmouth. The following day, late in the evening, migrants from a boat that had unusually set sail from Cherbourg in Normandy arrived at Hayling Island, Portsmouth, which happens to be where Thomas is from and where he claims still to live.
With a significant number of organised supporters locally, and feeling confident after the Dover outing, Thomas called everyone to block the road out of town that would take the migrant workers, by this time exhausted and scared, to Dover for processing. According to police, 200 turned up, many masked up, hurling abuse towards migrants and police, injuring two officers and damaging several of their vehicles. The blockade lasted until about 4am.
Growing threat
Fascism emerges in different periods in different ways, but anyone who cannot see a new fascist menace coming into existence in Britain today is deluding themselves. Of course, we should not exaggerate the threat; there were only about 200 at each incident on 6–7 September. But we have to look at the direction and tempo of developments.
Since 2019, Thomas has been a close associate of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, aka Tommy Robinson, who brought 150,000 racists onto the streets of London in September 2025, and again with about half that number in May this year.
They share violent histories and an extreme hatred of Muslims, which they now hide under the slogan ‘Christ is King’. The adoption of Christian nationalism links them in a chain with the US far right and money, in the shape of Elon Musk and co.
On the same night as the Portsmouth outrage, Alternative for Germany (AfD) was celebrating gaining 44% in a German provincial election, a few seats short of an outright majority for the first time. Thomas and Robinson, along with other fascist outfits, also see electoralism as a useful tool in the construction of a fascist movement. Nigel Farage, along with almost every other politician, condemned the actions as ‘deplorable’—except for Restore leader Rupert Lowe.
But the far right have long abandoned Farage’s Reform UK. Many have entered Restore Britain and there are reports of ructions between them and the leadership. However, Lowe went out of his way to praise the Patriot Platform action.
He said his party ‘proudly stands with those peacefully protesting’ in Dover and called the Portsmouth street fighters ‘patriots’. Lowe may think he can ‘ride the fascist tiger’, but he will find out it is a dangerous sport!
The final piece of the jigsaw is the police. In Dover they made no arrests, claimed, quite ridiculously, that the protest was ‘spontaneous’ and that no law had been broken—despite the Crime and Policing Act 2026 banning masks on demonstrations, making it unlawful since 29 June. This is an example of the real ‘two-tier policing’ that the right falsely claims is aimed at them. In fact, since 2025, over 3,000 protesters have been arrested and 1,200 charged under the Terrorism Act for holding a placard saying ‘I support Palestine Action’. Those with face coverings are routinely arrested.
In Portsmouth there has been one arrest and there may be more. There the mob pelted police with bricks and stones, and shouted ‘Shame on you!’ at them when they retaliated. Fascists would like to win over sections of the police, many of whom are already racist, homophobic and misogynist to the core. This—not fighting the ‘establishment’—is their aim.
Workers’ united front
This must act as a wake-up call to the left and the labour movement. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, backed by Prime Minister Andy Burnham, may have condemned ‘intimidating and thuggish behaviour’ in Parliament, but her answer is to steal the racist right’s clothes and impose even more restrictions on migrants desperate to come to the UK.
We must continue to demand that all migrants are welcome here. We need to explain that the terrible conditions, wars and economic hardship are in large measure due to the imperialist powers’ exploitation and military interventions in their countries of origin. We need to build new houses, restore public services, raise the standard of social care, mitigate and stop climate change—and immigrants can help with this, as they already do. Who should pay for it? Britain’s 150 billionaires, who own 22% of the country’s wealth, should be taxed to pay for this—the same billionaires who give a nod and a wink to the fascists.
This is the message we should take into workplaces, schools and communities, while mobilising equally disciplined defence guards who can stand their ground if Patriot Platform or another far-right group tries to spread its message or intimidate people of colour.
Stand Up To Racism, controlled by the Socialist Workers Party and backed by most of the unions, rejects this approach and in many cases is a barrier to constructing a real anti-fascist workers’ united front. Celebrities and faith leaders in the Together Alliance will not stop the fascists. Workers and oppressed minorities can. It is not too late to build a real, democratic and fighting united front—we appeal to all anti-fascists to do so.
