Imagine if more than 300 eco or Palestine activists have surrounded an Elbit factory or data centre and had blocked all traffic for several hours. Certainly there would have been arrests and no doubt there would have been charges linking the action to a terrorism threat. Senior citizens have been carried away in police vans and threatened with years in prison for holding a placard condemning genocide in Gaza and supporting non-violent direct action. These people do not wear black uniforms and balaclavas.
In Dover this Saturday three hundred or more fascists blocked all the entrances the Dover passenger and freight port for several hours. They marched in wearing balaclavas and black clothes and then marched out at lunchtime with complete impunity.
The Dover operation was quite different from other recent far right interventions where supporters arrive by coach or train, appear similar to football fans and are often half drunk by the end of the day. We know they were organised by a known fascist, Danny ‘Tommo’ who is a convicted criminal. They were protesting about migrants arriving in small boats. Tommo is banned from Dover so may not have been there but the other Tommy (Robinson, aka Stephen Yaxley Lennon) sent support. It is unclear whether the two have no patched up a serious feud. It is reported that Robinson claimed there were a 100,000 British patriots ready to carry out further acts of this sort.
1936 Public Order Act flouted
Subject as hereinafter provided, any person who in any public place or at any public meeting wears uniform signifying his association with any political organisation or with the promotion of any political object shall be guilty of an offence:
This is existing legislation as laid out in the 1936 Public Order Act (thanks to Keith Flett’s blog for the quote).Not one arrest was made. They were allowed to continue their action for more than an hour and then they marched back to their transport home. None of the mainstream press has picked up on this anomaly and in fact it was scarcely covered on BBC news on Sunday, the day after.
In my fifty years in the movement I cannot remember an incident where this number of fascists have paraded in uniform -i,,e. theBlack shirts of Moseley – and at the same time have made a public protest. You can find pictures of fascists dressed up in their summer camps or whatever but not like this.
So this is significant. It shows how there is a radicalisation on the right of politics at least in England. Reform and now the competition from Restore on the further right is providing a fertile breeding ground for the growth of outright fascist groups. These militants can work with the Patriotic Platform who are behind this operation and also work inside Restore or even Reform.
Media minimising the event
I was surprised by how the apparently ‘progressive’ journalist invited on Sky News breakfast programme today said that we should not talk too much about these fascists since it gave them too much attention. She said it was an irritation rather than something more significant. This is the first time since Moseley’s blackshirts in the 1930’s that we have seen uniformed fascist squads in action. We need to also see the links between the Dover operation and the violent attacks on migrant homes in Thetford, Belfast or last summer’s aggression against hotels where refugees and migrants were lodged.
If you participated in the Dover action and saw how you could close down Britain’s biggest passenger port you will get a big boost. You will be more likely to join in other protests. If you are a sympathiser of such groups and you see this on the national media you will be more likely to join up. So to minimise the impact is a mistake.
from Hope not Hate website
Labour’s response
Local Labour MP, Mike Tapp’s, first reaction yesterday was to dismiss the protesters as ‘idiots’ disrupting local community life like the park run. The word fascist or racist did not pass his lips. This completely underestimates the political motivation of these uniformed activists. Tapp not once talked about the threat of the fascists to migrants and refugees, who are also part of the local community. He was concerned that the fascists had not understood that Labour was working well to reduce the number of boats arriving. Clearly he has little political understanding of the racism that motivates the fascists. You can reduce the boats by another 45% and they will still protest. The wind on the far right is now for re-migration and white nationalism is rising. More boats or less boats is not going to change that.
Today Tapp did finally raise the failure in police intelligence and very gently wondered whether the law had been fully implemented. The police can designate a protest area and then covering your face becomes illegal. We have seen this law used against progressive and left demonstrators. The priority in police intelligence appears to be directed against the eco and left activists. How can hundreds of uniformed fascists travel from around the region, gather in one place and set up road blocks?
Government minister, Jonathon Reynolds, focussed on the comic opera aspects of the event. He talked of ‘men dressed up in costumes’. Does he know nothing of political history? This year is the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street where the left – but not the Labour Party – stopped the Blackshirts of Mosley from marching through the East End. So it is a lot more than young men dressing up in costumes.
How can the left respond to Dover?
Counter mobilisations remain important and can be effective. Alone they will not stop people in certain communities around the country supporting outfits like Patriotic Platform. Aditya Chakrabortty in a Guardian article showed how the closure of the Vauxhall plant in Luton has led some workers to sympathise with Reform and Restore.
The labour movement and the left need to organise more effectively in these areas, where it is often weak, to change the narrative. It requires a more radical programme of measures than Burnham is currently proposing to provide good jobs, training, youth services and housing for younger people in particular. Working to develop a credible left alternative at a community level alongside counter protests is essential.
Nothing can change without a more decisive redistribution of resources, taxing the rich and business and taking control of key economic sectors. Just talking of 40 years of neo-liberalism will not cut it. Real action is needed.
@blog WTF…why are holding this fucking racist bastards an english flag with circled a's on it?
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The police have the power to force protestors to remove masks whenever they want to; this is not only for Palestine protests. Yet they chose not to do it, so the fascist thugs were able to take over Dover to “stop small boats!” Instead the police are quite happy to arrest protestors opposed to genocide. Someone needs to explain the difference between direct actions and a riot to police because clearly it is not evident to them.
The fact that anytime in a protest, the police can call a section for those wearing masks, endangers disabled people as well as prevents them from participation in protests. Are they forcing disabled people out of protests and taking away their rights of freedom of speech. That is fine for the gov’t and the police. These fascists thugs were wearing balaclavas, certainly to prevent their being identified and to frighten people. They could have declared this at any time in response to the protest.
Here is the law: “A new criminal offence which prohibits the wearing or otherwise using of an item that conceals identity when in an area designated by police under the new provisions.
This measure will criminalise the act of wearing or otherwise using an item (for instance a face covering) that conceals their or another person’s identity when in an area that the police have designated. A designation can only be made in relation to an area when the police reasonably believe that a protest may or is taking place in that area, the protest is likely to involve or has involved the commission of offences and that a designation would prevent or control the commission of offences. The offence will carry a maximum penalty of one month imprisonment, a £1000 fine, or both.”
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/crime-and-policing-act-2026-factsheets/crime-and-policing-act-2026-public-order-offences-factsheet
A similar event in Dover happened in 1998. Socialist Outlook reported 60 fascists, 300 counter-mobilising; their march moved and their rally was abandoned. Compare that against Dover, on Saturday 5 September 2026 (As Dave says: 300+ uniformed men shut the port for a morning, no arrests. Same port, same 1936 Act.
Dialectical materialism is the application of the laws of physics and chemistry to politics.
However, the simplistic use of dialectics can result in terrible consequences. For example, the misuse of dialectics by the German Communist Party, which famously concluded: ‘After Hitler, then us’, led to the annihilation of the Party; the second world war and the Holocaust.
Using dialectics, I therefore conclude that a Reform-led government will not be followed by a swing to the left in British politics, but will more likely result in the UK version of the Orban government in Hungary, which has been in power for over ten years now.
The events in Dover and Portsmouth, together with the coming to power of the Afd in Saxony-Anhalt alongside the prospect of a Reform-led government in the 2029 general election, should hopefully make the left sit up and launch the Democratic Socialist Party to take on the far-right.
Using the Office for National Statistics definition of the working class – manual, semi-skilled and skilled workers – most working-class people who support Reform are thick: For example: the Birmingham bin strikers all support Reform. Interestingly very few graduates support Reform.
The same thing is happening in France in the old mining and steel towns. These former Communist Party strongholds are now dominated by National Rally. Similarly, young working-class men in France, who are not graduates, support Marine Le Pen en masse.
Working class people who support Reform are racist. As a report of the SWP from the Clacton by-election explained – one respondent on receiving a Stand up to Racism leaflet was reported to have said: Stand up to Racism! I Stand up for Racism!
The correct application of dialectics means that the organised left including all the far-left sects and groups should urgently come together and launch the Democratic Socialist Party based on Marxist principles involving robust debate amongst all factions and tendencies.
John Smithee, Cambridgeshire.
Dave is absolutely correct to focus on the significance of the events in Dover & elsewhere. Like ‘Robinson’s’ big demo last year, the Patriot Platform is yet another pointer to the real possibility of fascism in the UK. And the recent electoral success of the AfD in Germany is yet another ‘sign of the times’. We need to use ALL available methods to block this – and that must surely include working with AND within the Together Alliance. The TA includes all the major unions, along with various anti-fascist/anti-racist organisations – and NOTHING on the left has EVER been able to put 500,000 people on the streets in a demo that was clearly designed as ‘AGAINST THE FAR RIGHT’. We need to wake up & ‘smell the coffee’ – before it’s too late!