UK minister condemns anti-migrant protests in Portsmouth

By Hannah McKay

PORTSMOUTH, England, Sept 7 (Reuters) – British minister Emma Reynolds condemned hundreds of protesters who blocked streets in the English coastal city of Portsmouth late on Sunday to try to stop the arrival of migrants from France, calling them “thuggish”.

The gathering was the second anti-migrant demonstration in two days, after masked men disrupted traffic in the port of Dover on Saturday, chanting “Stop the boats”, a reference to the vessels carrying asylum seekers across the English Channel.

“Perhaps the scale of the protest was something that we hadn’t seen before, but the police have brought this under control,” Reynolds, who is chief secretary to the Treasury, told Sky News on Monday when asked about the protests in Portsmouth.

PORTSMOUTH RESIDENT: ‘PEOPLE ARE UNHAPPY’

Successive British governments have faced accusations from opposition parties and anti-migration activists of failing to curb the numbers of asylum seekers coming to Britain, often in overcrowded, inflatable boats.

Portsmouth resident Sue Dewey, 68, said British Prime Minister Andy Burnham needed to step up his response to the issue of illegal migration after the protests worried the community.

“He needs to take note because people are unhappy,” she told reporters. “They’re not escaping persecution in France … Why aren’t we sorting it out better?” Migrant rights groups say many are fleeing poverty and conflict in parts of Africa and the Middle East, with some drawn to Britain by the English language.

Reynolds said the number of arrivals had fallen sharply to about 17,000 from January 1 to September 1, down 43% on the same period last year.

The protesters, who were responding to calls from some far-right groups believed to be using messaging systems including Signal and Telegram, were reacting to the arrival of 140 migrants who had travelled about 80 miles (130 km) across the Channel in a small boat to Portsmouth.

Police said about 200 people were dispersed by police in the early hours of Monday, and while no arrests had yet been made, an investigation was underway after a small number of officers were injured and some vehicles were damaged.

CHANGE FROM USUAL MIGRANT ROUTE

The arrival of a small boat carrying migrants from Cherbourg in France to Portsmouth could suggest a change from the usual route taken by the dinghies which tend to leave beaches near Calais and aim for the shorter 20 to 40 mile crossing further east near Dover, where there is a large facility to receive migrants.

“Portsmouth and other parts of southern England are not set up to be able to take and deal with, not just the public order, but also the processing of these people coming into Britain illegally,” police commissioner for the Portsmouth area Donna Jones told BBC Radio.

Earlier in September, Burnham and French President Emmanuel Macron announced that extra police would be deployed on beaches to deter small boat crossings. Police operations in the past have tended to focus on the area near Calais.

(Reporting by Hannah McKay in Portsmouth and Sarah Young, writing by Sarah Young, editing by Elizabeth Piper and Andrew Heavens)