A review was being carried out of how Kent Police dealt with masked protesters on Saturday, with a further demonstration in Portsmouth on Sunday.
Police should “urgently consider” what more could have been done in terms of intelligence and response tactics dealing with anti-migrant protests over the weekend, Downing Street has said.
Questions have been raised over Kent Police’s handling of a demonstration by masked activists that brought Dover to a standstill on Saturday.
A further protest took place in Portsmouth on Sunday, where around 200 demonstrators tried to block migrants being driven away for processing.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said on Wednesday: “I think it’s right that police urgently consider whether more could have been done to act on available intelligence and deploy a wider range of tactics to provide a more reassuring response for the public.
“Forces have been clear, they’ll be rightly learning from any lessons identified following the event, and ministers continue to engage to get reassurance on that issue.”
Officials have told Kent Police the Home Secretary expects them to be better prepared in future.
It is understood the Government believes the protesters wearing face coverings at the demonstration on Saturday could have been arrested.
Police powers around protests give a senior officer the authority to declare a protest area where concealing your identity would be an offence, but this action was not taken at the weekend.
The Government stance is apparently at odds with that of Kent Police, which said the only potential crime under investigation was damage to a road.
Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary said it was investigating potential assaults on officers and criminal damage after official vehicles were targeted.
Kent Police has called on the College of Policing to carry out a review of how it handled the protest, after it emerged that members of the public had tried to tip the force off about the presence of a large number of activists in the county the night before.
The anti-fascist campaign group Hope Not Hate said villagers in Preston-next-Wingham had contacted police to say activists had swamped the area, and that they had been told by one person that they had called counter-terrorism police and 999 to say they had heard someone talking about attacking Muslims.
Kent Police said if the information received had been fully assessed it would have allowed the force to “consider resourcing”, but that the protest would still have gone ahead.
It said in a statement on Tuesday: “Following the protest in Dover on Saturday, Kent Police has debriefed its policing response.
“The protest organisers adopted a different approach to previous protests, and as part of our commitment to public safety we have examined our decision-making to identify any lessons, to ensure we are well prepared for future events organised in a similar way.
“During that initial review, we found the force had received non-emergency information late on Friday evening that a protest could take place in the town the following day. This information was not fully assessed. If it was, it may have allowed the force to consider its resourcing.
“However, this information would not have prevented the lawful protest from taking place, nor the disruption experienced by the town, port and wider community.”
Kent Police has asked the College of Policing to carry out “a learning review” of how it dealt with the demonstration.
