How did a masked far-right mob block Dover for hours without a single arrest?

Catch up

Three things were not quite what they appeared to be in our journalism this week.

The NHS Right to Choose scheme is supposed to give patients another route to an autism or ADHD assessment. But after Kent and Medway spent £28.9m against a £5.3m budget, providers were given tighter limits, leaving patients without reliable assessment dates. We followed what happened to one man who thought he had finally found a way forward, and asked why the NHS cannot say how many people are waiting or how many have been affected.

The Green victory in a Dover by-election looked like a surge. In fact, the party received only nine more votes than it had when it finished third in 2023. We examined how the collapse of the Conservative vote, Reform’s arrival and Restore’s first Kent campaign changed everything around an almost unchanged Green total.

And Kent is regularly visible on cinema screens without looking like Kent at all. Brands Hatch becomes Monza, Dover Castle becomes Sokovia, and Chatham Dockyard can apparently be anywhere provided it happened sufficiently long ago. We looked at the films that use the county as a flexible backdrop, and the much smaller number that allow it to play itself.

How did a masked far-right mob block Dover for hours without a single arrest?

For several hours on Saturday morning, a masked far-right mob effectively took control of the roads around Dover.

They blocked traffic around the country’s busiest ferry port, caused miles of queues and marched through the town dressed largely in black and wearing balaclavas. By lunchtime, they had dispersed, and traffic slowly returned to normal.

Kent Police made no arrests. More remarkably, the force says it does not currently believe much of what happened amounted to a criminal offence.

Assistant Chief Constable Nigel Brookes told the Kent Current that “the only associated offence we are investigating is criminal damage to a road.”

Kent Police has defended its handling of Saturday’s disruption, saying officers acted proportionately and that it must distinguish between behaviour that is objectionable or disruptive and behaviour that actually constitutes an offence. It is also sticking with its description of the event as “spontaneous”, although it has now said it will examine the intelligence process that preceded it.

That description is becoming rather harder to explain.

Evidence seen by the Kent Current shows that people connected with Saturday’s action had already gathered overnight in a village around half an hour from Dover. Their vehicles filled a village hall car park, were left on a recreation ground and spilt onto surrounding roads, attracting the attention of residents hours before the Dover blockade began.

The action itself started early on Saturday morning. Kent Police puts the number involved at approximately 200, although other estimates place it higher. Many were dressed almost uniformly in black, with balaclavas obscuring their faces.

Groups blocked roads around the Port of Dover, including the A20, bringing traffic to a halt. National reporting described several miles of congestion, while ferry passengers faced delays and Dover parkrun was cancelled.

The group later marched through the town chanting “stop the boats” and “whose streets? our streets”, accompanied by police officers. Kent Police’s initial public response was that officers were at the scene and “engaging” with those involved.

Brookes said the force was “of course disappointed with the significant traffic disruption for several hours on Saturday morning in Dover”, but stressed that police must apply the law regardless of what those involved believe.

“We will always support people’s right to peaceful protest, and we will always seek to police proportionately, fairly, and reasonably,” he said. “We do not take account of why people are protesting, or the rights, wrongs, or reasonableness of that as that is not a matter for the police.”

The question for Kent Police is not why it failed to arrest people because they hold far-right views. It is why people were apparently able to block roads around Dover for several hours without their conduct crossing the threshold for arrest.

Brookes said the right to peaceful protest was an important part of democracy but was not unlimited. If offences were committed, lawful police conditions were breached, or disruption crossed the legal threshold, he said, the force would act.

Kent Police’s position is that, on Saturday, it apparently did not.

There is also the question of just how spontaneous the whole thing really was.

The action has been linked to Patriot Platform, a recently formed far-right network led by Daniel Thomas, better known as Danny Tommo. Thomas had indicated publicly in the days beforehand that some form of action was coming, while the organisation has subsequently presented what happened in Dover as its work.

Residents of Preston, around 15 miles from Dover, began reporting an unusual influx of people and vehicles on Friday night. One resident described driving down Mill Lane at around 10pm and seeing “a lot of blokes” around the village school and a nearby van business.

By Saturday morning, the gathering was disrupting the village.

“Can whoever is housing all the people that arrived overnight ask them to remove their cars from around the village immediately?” one resident wrote in a local Facebook group. “They have filled the hall car park and have stuck cars on the rec, and we have the village breakfast this morning.”

As events unfolded in Dover, residents began making the connection. Another wrote, “Seeing our village used for racists and xenophobes to gather makes me incredibly angry and sad.”

None of that establishes what Kent Police knew on Friday night. A political mobilisation can be organised in advance without police knowing, and the force says it does not routinely monitor peaceful activists.

But it does mean that a substantial number of people connected with Saturday’s action had travelled to Kent, gathered overnight and left enough vehicles behind to disrupt a village before appearing together in Dover the following morning.

Kent Police says Saturday’s events “developed rapidly and, based on the information available to us at the time, was treated in-line with national guidance as spontaneous.” Brookes has now said the force will examine its intelligence process.

There is an important distinction between monitoring people because of their political views and identifying preparations for a substantial mobilisation aimed at disrupting roads around critical national infrastructure. Quite how Saturday fell through that gap is now one of the questions facing the force.

The absence of arrests raises another.

Kent Police has previously taken a rather different approach when environmental activists blocked roads around exactly the same port.

In September 2021, Insulate Britain activists sat down on roads leading into and out of the Port of Dover. Kent Police arrested 39 people.

The circumstances were not identical. Five years have passed, legislation has changed, and police decisions depend on precisely what individuals are doing rather than simply whether a road has been obstructed. Previous arrests do not mean everybody involved in a subsequent road blockade must automatically be arrested.

But the contrast is striking.

When climate campaigners blocked roads at the Port of Dover, Kent Police arrested 39 of them. On Saturday, at least 200 masked far-right activists caused what the force itself describes as “significant traffic disruption for several hours”, yet nobody was arrested and the only offence currently being investigated is damage to a road.

We have asked Kent Police what was materially different about Saturday’s conduct that meant it did not cross the threshold for arrest, but have not received a response.

There is a similar complication around the balaclavas. Simply covering your face in public is not a criminal offence, and Kent Police says the powers available to officers have specific statutory requirements that have to be met before they can be exercised.

Brookes nevertheless offered a fairly pointed assessment of those who chose to hide their identities.

“There is no need to wear a face covering in Kent, if your plan is to peacefully express your views,” he said.

There is also a much older piece of public order legislation that may be relevant to the way Saturday’s group presented itself. Section 1 of the Public Order Act 1936 makes it an offence in a public place or public meeting to wear a uniform signifying association with a political organisation or the promotion of a political object.

The law was introduced in response to the political uniforms worn by fascist movements in the 1930s.

That does not mean several hundred people wearing black and balaclavas automatically constituted an illegal political uniform. The legal test is considerably more specific than simply looking alike. But the strikingly uniform appearance of many of those involved raises a separate question about whether the legislation could have been relevant to Saturday’s mobilisation.

The way the group presented itself was plainly part of the impact. Footage shows long lines of men in black, many with their faces concealed, physically occupying roads before moving together through Dover.

It was an unusual sight even for a town that has repeatedly found itself turned into a backdrop for other people’s arguments about migration.

Dover saw serious violence between far-right and anti-fascist groups in 2016. Saturday appears to have been the largest far-right mobilisation in the town for years, although this time there was little of the open violence seen a decade ago.

Instead, the tactic was disruption. A large group arrived with little warning to the authorities, concealed many of its members’ identities and stopped normal movement around the town for several hours.

It worked.

Patriot Platform has presented the action as a success and indicated that further mobilisations will follow. A day later, another group of masked far-right activists appeared in Portsmouth, where roads were again blocked.

Kent Police says it now intends to identify and engage with people who attended in Dover to understand their future plans. Brookes said this would allow officers to support the right to peaceful protest while balancing it against the needs of the local community.

By then, however, Saturday had already provided a fairly clear lesson.

At least 200 people had assembled, many dressed alike and with their identities concealed, blocked roads around one of Britain’s most important ports for several hours and caused significant disruption across Dover. They then left without a single arrest.

The group responsible says there will be more.

Next time, they will know exactly how far they were able to go.

In brief

🗳️ Breaking news as we publish: Plans to reorganise local government across Kent and Medway are being withdrawn, less than two months after ministers confirmed a new four-authority model for the county. The plan would have abolished Kent County Council, Medway Council and all 12 district and borough councils from April 2028, replacing them with new authorities covering North, East, Mid and West Kent. Those changes are now off, meaning existing councils will remain in place, and any previously scheduled local elections will go ahead next year.

🌳 Cllr Sarah Hudson is no longer a member of the Conservative group at Kent County Council, although she says she continues to sit as a Conservative councillor. Hudson told the Kent Current the move was for “personal reasons.” The group’s leader, Harry Rayner, confirmed that she had left but said he had “nothing further to add at this point.” All very intriguing.

📄 Tonbridge & Malling Borough Council have been instructed by the government to proceed with a consultation on the authority's Local Plan. It comes after the full council voted not to proceed with the plan last week.

🏘️ Residents in Hythe have told KentOnline that replacing derelict garages with five new homes will 'destroy' their neighbourhood. Yes, really.

🎟️ Canterbury City Council is demanding priority access to the Bayeux Tapestry for its residents.

💷 A bit of a whoopsie for Gravesham Borough Council, which accidentally underpaid HMRC £320,000 in VAT on theatre ticket sales.

🎭 Meanwhile, Sevenoaks Town Council want to purchase the Stag Theatre from Sevenoaks District Council. Fingers crossed they understand how VAT works.

🧁 Maidstone Borough Council has bowed to the Big Cake Shed Industry and offered a cheaper and simpler licensing system for people running cake businesses in their gardens.

🚛 Ashford International Truckstop has been named the best truckstop of the year.

🦡 Kent Police have discovered suspected drugs hidden inside a badger set, raising serious questions about the rise of organised badger crime.

🐦‍⬛ Choughs have been born in the wild for the first time since being reintroduced to Kent in 2023.

⚽ Ebbsfleet United have finally had their suspension from the National League lifted, so they were able to start their season over the weekend.

🏟️ Folkestone Invicta Football Club have announced ambitious new stadium plans.

Council matters

Meetings this week:

• Dover: Cabinet meets tonight (Monday) to talk about social housing, car parking, finances, and more.
• Gravesham: Cabinet will discuss finances and corporate vulnerability tonight (Monday).
• Kent: Devolution and Local Government Re-organisation Cabinet Committee will meet on Tuesday to discuss KCC's response to the government's plan to break Kent into four and establish a Foundational Strategic Authority.
• Kent: Kent and Medway Police and Crime Panel will question Police and Crime Commissioner Matthew Scott on Thursday.
• Ashford: Cabinet meets on Thursday to discuss pedestrian access to Park Mall car park, a parking strategy, and the Local Plan.

New planning applications:

• Construction of 15 homes on Borden Lane in Sittingbourne.

Property of the week

This is Kearnsey House in Faversham, a substantial Victorian home that has somehow managed to avoid the fate of being painted entirely white. Original fireplaces, high ceilings, bay windows and ornate plasterwork are all still here, but the current owners have also filled the house with bold colours and enough personality that every room feels slightly different from the last. There are five bedrooms, a recently updated kitchen, a generous walled garden and even the option of reinstating the original driveway. It is a reminder that period homes can have plenty of character before you even start counting the architectural features.

Check out this 5 bedroom end of terrace house for sale on Rightmove

5 bedroom end of terrace house for sale in Kearnsey House, Canterbury Road, Faversham, ME13 for £780,000. Marketed by Foundation Estate Agents, Faversham

Rightmove.co.uk

Events this week

🎤 Thu 10 Sep - John Kearns: Tilting at Windmills // Comedian portrays his life, books he hasn't read, and VAT. Trinity Theatre, Tunbridge Wells. Tickets £27. Also at Gulbenkian Theatre, Canterbury on 16 Sep, and Faversham Assembly Rooms on 9 Oct.

🔊 10 - 13 Sep - Ramsgate Festival of Sound // Site-specific sound installations, experimental performances, films and live music, culminating with Eurovision electronic inventor Look Mum No Computer. Various locations, Ramsgate. Various prices.

🏛️ 11 - 20 Sep - Heritage Open Days // Rare access to Kent sites including Dover’s sealed Western Heights tunnels, its former Marine Station, cathedral archives and historic lightship LV21. Various locations. Free.

🎞️ 12 - 13 Sep - Prospect at Prospect Cottage // Previously unseen Derek Jarman footage is shown inside a part of his Dungeness home rarely opened to visitors, alongside a guided cottage tour. Prospect Cottage, Dungeness. Tickets £22.

📜 Sun 13 Sep - Jessica Rose: Gold // Award-winning spoken word artist returns to the stage with a collection of new work. Avenue Theatre, Sittingbourne. Tickets £12.

Footnotes

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