Black-clad Dover protesters condemned for ‘dressing up in costumes’ by minister

Far-right linked group able to mobilise at scale due to police ‘inaction’, says founder of Hope Not Hate

The group of masked, black-clad vigilantes who blockaded roads in Dover could repeat the disruption unless police step up efforts to stop them, politicians and campaigners have said.

Responsibility for the demonstration has been claimed by Patriot Platform, an anti-immigration group with links to the far right, which styles itself as having a “fierce love for our homeland”.

The campaign group Hope Not Hate, which has been monitoring Patriot Platform, said that despite its founder, Daniel Thomas, nicknamed Danny Tommo, posting on social media about his plans to cause disruption, the authorities had “failed to act”.

Thomas, a far-right social media influencer who was Tommy Robinson’s bodyguard, was able to mobilise a large group for the demonstration on Saturday. Hope Not Hate’s founder, Nick Lowles, said that this was “clearly the consequence of the inaction from the police”.

He added: “We fear that without decisive action things will only get worse from here.”

Thomas posted that Saturday’s gathering had been the group’s “warning”, suggesting it could be the first step in a wider plan. On Instagram, he wrote that he was switching off for a few weeks as he was “mentally exhausted”, but that he would subsequently resume “updated meetings and vetting”.

“A message was sent! Now imagine how powerful the next message will be,” he wrote.

Mike Tapp, the Labour MP for Dover and Deal, shared his concerns about the need for greater police support “when Dover is targeted again” in a piece for the Mirror. He suggested that he would like additional officers, including mutual aid from forces such as the Met, available to be mobilised quickly.

He wrote: “The Port of Dover is not just another road junction. It is critical national infrastructure.

“Wilfully obstructing a highway can be a criminal offence. New legislation also means police can designate protest areas where concealing your identity with a balaclava or other face covering becomes an offence.”

Tapp posted on X that Kent police appeared to have had “little advance warning”, and questioned whether intelligence had been missed. “I will be asking why,” he wrote.

“A clearly coordinated protest is not ‘spontaneous’ as described by police. We can and must do better.”

Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, said that although peaceful protest was an “essential part of British life”, this differed from “dressing up in costumes like this and disrupting people’s lives”.

He told the Sky News Sunday Morning programme: “I would condemn it, but I’d condemn the disruption it caused for local people as well. Clearly, that’s not something we would want or expect to see on the [streets] of Britain.”

When pressed on the apparent unpreparedness of the police, he said that “on the whole, the police handled it very well”.

Kent policeengaged with the protest on Saturday, which the Port of Dover described as a “public order incident”. Protesters had dispersed by lunchtime, and no arrests were made during the incident.

Social media videos showed a large number of demonstrators linking arms in a blockade across the A20, chanting “stop the boats” and “England till I die”. The police did not give an official estimate of the number of people involved.

The Patriot Platform was formed in June from smaller localised anti-migrant groups, and describes itself as an “army of patriots” that believes “Britain belongs to the British”. Before the demonstration on Saturday, it held several recruitment days across England.

The group has been built up through Thomas’s social media following, containing false or unevidenced claims, such as that Birmingham city council has banned English flags, as well as unsourced statistics claiming that rape has ballooned in the UK relative to other European countries.

Hope Not Hate has previously revealed the violent history of key members of the group , including records of violence against women. Thomas also has multiple criminal convictions.

In late 2025 and early 2026, he collaborated with Raise the Colours – the flag campaign group that put up hundreds of union and St George flags across England in 2025 – to run a series of trips to Calais in which he filmed asylum seekers and hounded the charity workers assisting them, resulting in a ban from France.

He has since targeted migrants arriving by small boat along the English south coast, and was banned from Dover, Ramsgate and Folkestone in August.

Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick said that although he understood that people were “extremely frustrated” by the small boats crisis, he has “always hated people obstructing other people doing their daily life”.

He told the Sky News Sunday Morning programme: “I don’t like people going around in balaclavas, which is obviously very intimidating. In fact, our party’s policy is to ban face coverings like that.

“The police should take whatever action they can to stop this happening again.”

Kent police declined to comment. A government spokesperson said: “The right to peaceful protest is fundamental to our democracy, but we condemn the behaviour in Dover and the travel disruption it has caused.”