London: Britain is engulfed in a new row over asylum seekers after 781 arrived in a single day on small boats in the English Channel, with video footage showing one man leaving a young child in the water in his scramble to board a boat.
The surge triggered calls for a right-wing rally against migration despite UK government claims that it was curbing the influx, which has become one of the most potent and divisive issues in British national life.
One high-profile protest organiser, Danny Tommo, sought to stop one of the inflatable boats by slashing it with a knife while it had at least one person on board, escalating the confrontations off the English coast.
British police arrested Tommo, whose real name is Daniel Thomas, on suspicion of destroying a boat and endangering personal safety, and kept him in custody.
When news emerged that he was detained in the English town of Basingstoke, right-wing activists including Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, called on social media on Thursday morning – about 11pm AEST – for supporters to gather at the town’s police station to demand his release.
Robinson, who has gained support from billionaire Elon Musk when organising large rallies against migration, has described the small boat arrivals as an “invasion” and encouraged protests at hotels used to house the migrants. He has been convicted of assault in the past, and was jailed for seven months in 2024 for breaching a High Court injunction that banned him from repeating false claims about a Syrian refugee.
On Thursday, amid the attention on the boat arrivals, Robinson also aired his support for Russia’s criticism of the West in the war in Ukraine. “The people are seeing through the whole ‘it’s Russias fault’ [sic] Western propaganda war machine,” he posted. He visited Moscow in June, when he met Musk’s father, Errol, in the Russian capital.
The protests against asylum seekers increased over recent days when two small boats landed on English shores, avoiding the surveillance of UK Border Force in the busy channel.
Most of the small inflatable boats do not make it all the way across the channel because they are intercepted in open water by Border Force officers, who transfer them to UK vessels and take them to a detention centre at Dover.
The arrival of the two dinghies on beaches near Portsmouth triggered demonstrations on Tuesday and led to the arrest of six people, three of whom were later charged.
Hampshire police said they charged one woman, Shannon Dodds, 32, with two counts of assault for allegedly beating an emergency services worker. They charged another woman, Sally Pearson, 31, with a racially aggravated public order offence as well as assaulting an emergency worker. A man, Toby Matthews, 33, was also charged with assaulting an emergency worker.
Police arrested Tommo on Wednesday night after he slashed the inflatable boat when at least one rescue worker remained on board, after the asylum seekers had been removed.
“A man has been arrested after a boat that had an emergency responder on board was damaged in the English Channel,” the police said.
Tommo shared a video of his actions on social media.
The chaotic scenes on French beaches this week included a rush of asylum seekers onto 10 boats on Wednesday alone, with authorities confirming that 781 people had made it to the UK. On Tuesday, 154 arrived on three boats. On Monday, 150 arrived on three boats.
An English photographer captured footage on Wednesday of one asylum seeker wading through waves on a French beach to reach an inflatable boat while he carried a young child in a black outfit and fitted with a life vest.
The video showed the child appeared to go limp after crashing through waves, and the asylum seeker chose to leave the child floating in the water alongside the boat and then tried to climb aboard the vessel.
French rescuers approached quickly to lift the child out of the water and place him or her on a surf-ski. One of the rescuers appeared to try to keep the man with the child, but he chose to stay with the other asylum seekers.
Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.
David Crowe is Europe correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X or email.From our partners
Discover more from PressNewsAgency
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.