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An estimated 300 people have gathered outside a police investigation centre where anti-migrant activist Daniel Thomas is under arrest, calling for his release.
The group – nearly all men and some with Union flags – arrived at the centre in Basingstoke, Hampshire, just before 6.30pm after social media posts urged them to be there at that time.
The protesters, who were mostly in black, and some with hoods or face coverings, milled about in the road, chanting “free DT”. Many took mobile phone footage of the protest.
About a dozen police officers stood between the crowd and the entrance to the police investigation centre but the demonstration was peaceful.
Mr Thomas, 37, known as Danny Tommo, had uploaded footage to YouTube appearing to show him being arrested as an officer told him he was being detained on suspicion of criminal damage “recklessly endangering someone’s life”.
He had been filmed appearing to slash the side of a dinghy in the English Channel with a rescue crew member still on board.
The government on Wednesday said it must “push further and harder” to stop migrants crossing the Channel after more than 700 people arrived in the UK – the highest number for a single day so far this year.
The crowd remained even as darkness fell. They applauded any drivers who hooted their support as they passed.
On Tuesday hundreds of anti-migrant protesters had gathered in Gosport in the belief that a boat of asylum-seekers, which had travelled from France, would be brought to shore.
Six people were arrested by officers during the evening, the force said.
The boat eventually 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.
Education secretary Lucy Powell said not every migrant boat could be intercepted after two vessels landed undetected on British shores within two days.
Home secretary Shabana Mahmood, who has ordered an urgent review by the Border Security Command, said the failure to intercept the two boats was “not acceptable”.
The Home Office recorded 781 arrivals in 10 boats on Wednesday, suggesting an average of 78 people per boat.
It brings the provisional total for Channel crossings for the year so far to 18,565.
The numbers are down 42 per cent on this time last year, and 26 per cent below the figure at this stage in 2024.
A spokesperson for Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary said: “A man has been arrested after a boat that had an emergency responder on board was damaged in the English Channel.”
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