Police are “conducting inquiries” after far-right activist Danny Tommo filmed himself apparently slashing the side of a dinghy with a rescue crew member still on board.
The 37-year-old appeared to shout “traitors” having used a knife to cut the side of the vessel, that had been used by people smugglers to transport migrants in the Channel.
In footage on YouTube, he could be seen slashing and stabbing the dinghy after a crew member boarded to apparently take the vessel back to France.
Hampshire Police, who are investigating the footage, also said six anti-migrant protesters had been arrested in Gosport after they gathered at the marina mistakenly believing a small boat was due to arrive on Tuesday.
Hundreds of activists gathered after the far-right campaigner Daniel Thomas filmed himself going out to sea to try to intercept a dinghy carrying dozens of migrants.
Some of the protesters in Gosport wore black clothing and face coverings, and chanted “send them back”, wrongly assuming the boat would be guided to the Hampshire coast.
In fact, it docked in Dover, Kent, at around 12.30am on Wednesday after 51 migrants on board reportedly refused help from a French ship and spent 33 hours at sea.
In a video published on X on Wednesday morning, Mr Thomas branded the latest migrant arrivals a “sad day for the country” but argued that pressure from protesters “worked in some respects” because it stopped arrivals coming into Gosport.
Hampshire Police said two men from Salisbury, aged 19 and 36, had been arrested on suspicion of aggravated trespass; and four people from Gosport – two men aged 33 and 67, and two women aged 31 and 32 – were held on suspicion of assaulting an emergency worker.
The 67-year-old was also held on suspicion of careless driving.
The migrant dinghy left the Normandy coast on Monday and was shadowed by a French coastguard vessel, with authorities declaring the occupants had refused help as they were “determined to take all risks to reach the United Kingdom”.
British rescue boats were sent to collect the passengers on Tuesday, and the UK’s Maritime and Coastguard Agency said they would be transferred to Border Security Command.
A Government spokesperson said: “The Border Security Command works around the clock to protect our border and will continue to detain, check and process every small boat arrival.”
It had been expected that the migrants would be taken to Gosport, with local MP Dame Caroline Dinenage saying the Home Office had told her it was “increasingly likely that a small boat will need to be disembarked in the local area in the coming hours”.
But the vessel carrying the migrants headed east, later arriving in Dover where migrants were seen disembarking wearing orange life jackets and carrying personal belongings.
Around a dozen protesters were spotted in the area, with local police having blocked off a nearby road.
Routes used by small-boat people smugglers appear to be changing, and UK authorities are understood to have plans to deal with small-boat arrivals further west along the coast than Kent.
Earlier this month, a dinghy was met by lifeboats from the Isle of Wight having set off from the Cherbourg area, triggering protests in Portsmouth. It is thought to have made one of the longest journeys of any small boat in the Channel.
Similarly, departures from as far west in France as Normandy are rare.
Two other migrant boats have also managed to land undetected in the UK on Monday and Tuesday this week, the first time in a year that there have been unescorted landings and the only time since the start of 2023.
The thousands of migrants crossing the Channel are usually brought to shore by Border Security Command or RNLI boats.
A Home Office spokesman said 21 people who landed on Tuesday had been detained.
French police are also investigating whether the death of a man found on a beach in northern France on Wednesday is linked to a Channel crossing.
Some 17,480 migrants have arrived after crossing the Channel by boat so far this year, including 5,011 since Andy Burnham became Prime Minister.
The total so far for 2026 is down 46% on the same point last year.
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