Activists apparently inspired by far-right figure Danny Tommo shouted ‘send them back’ as they waited for a small boat carrying migrants.
Six people have been arrested after anti-migrant protesters gathered at a marina in Hampshire mistakenly believing a small boat was due to arrive.
Hundreds of activists went to Gosport on Tuesday night after far-right campaigner Daniel Thomas, also known as Danny Tommo, 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.
It in fact 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.
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.
Police are “conducting inquiries” into footage of Thomas slashing the side of an inflatable boat while a member of a rescue team was still on it, then sailing away shouting “traitors”.
The migrant dinghy left the Normandy coast on Monday morning 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.
Similarly, departures from as far west in France as Normandy are rare.
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.
On Monday, a migrant boat arrived in the UK undetected, the first time one has landed unescorted for a year.
Five people were detained and passed to Border Security Command after the dinghy made it to shore at Folkestone in Kent.
Defence minister Luke Pollard dismissed suggestions the Government had lost control of the border.
“Our borders are secure, but we want to make them stronger,” he told LBC Radio, adding that a Home Office investigation is under way into what happened.
The thousands of migrants crossing the Channel are usually brought to shore by Border Security Command or RNLI boats.
No small boat arrivals to the UK coast without an escort have been officially recorded since September 6 last year.
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.
