The train from Saint-Pancras to Dover, this Saturday morning, September 5, is full of retirees and families ready for a day at the beach – the weather is forecast. At the back of a wagon, a dozen heavily tattooed white men talk and sing loudly, with Union Jack masks or bandanas around their necks. It looks like they have responded to the call of the far-right groups Britain First, For Britain or very active individuals on YouTube (like “The Little Veteran”), who have decided to converge on Dover, to protest against the “Little boats” (inflatable boats) and all migrants from France, who use them to cross the Channel.
Their goal is also to disrupt a demonstration planned the same day by local refugee defense organizations in homage to Abdulfatah Hamdallah, a young Sudanese who drowned at the end of August while attempting to cross from the French coast.
Crossings are at their highest this summer, with more than 5,000 people reaching Kent’s beaches since 1er January, against 1,850 in 2019. Wednesday, September 2, more than 400 arrived, on about thirty boats. The low number of trucks using the Channel Tunnel, or ferries, and the expected tightening of British migration policy from 2021 partly explain these figures.
Galvanize extreme right wing groups
Boris Johnson’s government has so far responded with very right-wing rhetoric, with Home Secretary Priti Patel calling for France to intercept more boats and calling it“Illegal” the passages. The Home Office even criticized lawyers at the end of August “Activists” prevent the expulsion of migrants by increasing the number of legal remedies. Kent Conservative MP Natalie Elphicke added fuel to the fire by tweeting on Friday: “People are legitimately angry at the number of those arriving by boat. [Ces arrivées] are totally unacceptable. ”
Nothing like it to galvanize the multiple neo-Nazi, xenophobic or anti-Islam groups active in the United Kingdom, feared in recent days Hope Not Hate, an anti-racist network based in London and closely following the extreme right of the country. At the end of August, members of Britain First increased the number of “raids” on hotels in Coventry or Newcastle to intimidate asylum seekers accommodated in these establishments.
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