The U.K. government and Ministers condemned protests by hundreds of people in Portsmouth, who had gathered until the early hours of Monday (September 7, 2026) morning to protest the arrival of illegal migrants on a dinghy from France.

Protesters faced off with police holding riot shields, as they sought to block buses carrying migrants for processing in Kent.

“We condemn the intimidating and thuggish behaviour we saw in Portsmouth last night,” a Home Office spokesperson said in a statement emailed to The Hindu and other news organisations.

The words were echoed by government Ministers.

The way the protesters behaved “crosses a line”, Treasury Secretary Emma Reynolds said.

Police and Crime Commissioner for Hampshire and the Isle of White, Donna Jones, who is affiliated to the Conservative Party, said 140 migrants arrived in one boat early Sunday (September 6) morning from France and arrived in the U.K. around midday on Sunday.

Masked men block traffic at UK’s Dover port amid anti-immigrant tensions The boat had reportedly been followed by French authorities for about 10 hours, halfway across the English Channel.

The Home Office declined to comment on whether any of the migrants who had arrived in Portsmouth on Sunday were Indian nationals.

A day earlier, some 200 protesters took to the streets in the coastal port town of Dover, with visuals of masked men boarding trains and marching along the road chanting , “Whose streets?

Our streets.” Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said: “I condemn it.

I mean, peaceful protest – essential part of British life, but that’s not dressing up in costumes like this and disrupting people’s lives.” To deter migration, U.K. proposes new rules for settlement ‘Lack of border control’ Commissioner Jones said the U.K. government had “lost control” of the 100s of miles of British coastline in an interview with Sky News.

In another interview, she said that her constituency did not have the processing facilities for migrants and that there would be “significant” issues if traffickers shift their routes from Dover to Portsmouth, which is farther west than where dinghies carrying migrants from France typically enter the U.K.

Near record number of small boat migrants reach U.K. in 2025 The number of protestors had grown to 400-500 by midnight on Sunday, and they stayed on till about 3 a.m. in Eastney, in Portsmouth, Ms.

Jones said “when a legal position was agreed” and protesters agreed they had made their point.

Ms.

Jones called the protests “a very worrying escalation” of the situation but said “most” protesters were lawfully protesting.

She said the incidents were a “real wake up call” for the U.K. government over the lack of border control.

Since the July 2024 election of the Labour government under Keir Starmer, 48,000 crossing attempts had been prevented as per government data.

The French and U.K. governments have signed two agreements, since the election, to control irregular crossings through the English Channel.