RNLI lifeboats packed with migrants refused access to two ports.H

Portsmouth: Police remain at Eastney Point after migrant crossing

Port bosses refused to let two lifeboats carrying 120 migrants dock amid fears of protests, it has emerged. RNLI vessels wanted to land at Southampton and Portsmouth Harbour, and were even threatened with legal action if they tried to bring the asylum seekers ashore.

They were then taken to Eastney, several miles away, where they were met by hundreds of furious protesters. The harbour only had one access road, leading to chaos for the authorities as they tried to transfer the migrants to Manston processing centre in Kent. A spokesman for Associated British Ports (ABP) confirmed that the crews had been told not to come to Southampton.

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RNLI vessels were refused permission to dock (Image: Getty)

They said: “ABP did receive an enquiry about landing recovered migrants at the Port of Southampton.

“We had to decline the enquiry as the port did not have suitable reception facilities available. If there had been a safety of life at sea issue where Southampton was the closest port or if we had received a formal direction from the authorities, then we would have played a role.

“Neither was the case in this situation.”

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch accused Labour of being “weak” on immigration as 120 people were brought into Portsmouth following a record crossing attempt from near Cherbourg.

It prompted warnings of an “invasion” of other coastal towns, such as Brighton, Southampton or Weymouth as smugglers change their tactics to exploit weak points in the border.

And hundreds of protesters descended on Portsmouth late on Sunday night, vowing not to let three coaches of migrants through.

Some even chased the buses down the motorway as they carried the migrants from Portsmouth to Dover.

Hampshire Police Federation said one of the officers injured on Sunday night was “only three days out of training school”.

Spencer Wragg, Chair of Hampshire Police Federation, said officers appeared to have become a target while they were trying to police the incident.

He said: “We’ve received reports of officers being assaulted, I’ve seen footage of officers being pushed off their motorbike, I’ve seen pictures of police vehicles damaged. It appears that the police last night became the target for some of the protest.

“Thankfully there are no serious injuries to officers, but the professionalism they showed in the face of provocation and immense pressure was admirable. Those scenes in that area of Portsmouth weren’t protests, they weren’t protests at all, it was clear that some people were intent on disorder and venting their frustrations.

“If people have a point to make, and an issue they want to legitimately protest about, that is not about assaulting officers, that is not about damaging vehicles or anything like that. That is just disorder.

“One of policing’s key roles is to protect people’s right to protest, and having been a public order officer for 30 years myself, I’ve policed numerous protests. The vast majority of protests and people attending protest do so peacefully and want to get their view across.

“What we saw last night and into the early hours of this morning doesn’t support the cause of those peacefully protesting, it was merely criminal behaviour of assaults, damage and intimidation.”

Mrs Badenoch declared that “thuggery” cannot stop small boat crossings, adding it “requires a serious plan and a serious deterrent”.

Zia Yusuf (right) was confronted by protest organiser Daniel Thomas (Image: Theo Shaw/PA Wire)

She told the Daily Express: “Since Labour entered government, 95 per cent of illegal immigrants crossing the Channel have been allowed to stay.

“So, it’s no wonder the small boats keep coming or that we get the scenes we saw in Dover and Portsmouth at the weekend.

“I unconditionally condemn the violence, and the police have my full support in upholding the peace.

“But the public are clearly angry about the Government’s inability to stop illegal immigration into Britain. The way to deal with that is with a serious plan and a serious deterrent, not thuggery.

“Andy Burnham is claiming the one-in-one-out deal with France is sufficient, when it’s only returned 1,700 people to the continent (a reminder: 20,000 people have crossed the Channel just this year), and handing leaflets to illegal immigrants reminding them not to rape women.

“Labour is weak on immigration. Andy Burnham just doesn’t want to get his hands dirty.”

Rescue teams admitted they were blindsided as the smugglers used an “isolated, rocky spot” in the region, which is almost 285 miles away by road from Calais.

And the boat was in “serious difficulty” within “an hour”, officials said.

This led to five French rescue vessels and two helicopters helping the 120 asylum seekers on the nearly 70-mile journey.

Alexandra Whyte, the sister of a mother murdered by a Channel migrant, travelled for four hours to join demonstrators on the South coast at the weekend, as anger over small boat arrivals intensified on Sunday night.

Sudanese asylum seeker Deng Majek stabbed mother-of-one Rhiannon Whyte 23 times in a frenzied 90-second attack after following the 27-year-old to Bescot Road railway station in Walsall in 2024.

She died in hospital three days later. No motive has been established for why Majek, who arrived in the UK on a small boat three months before he attacked her. He was jailed for 29 years in January.

Alexandra told the Daily Express: “My sister’s story needs to be heard. As a female, standing out there and facing 160 male migrants and saying ‘I’m not afraid you’ … It’s something my sister deserves.

“There were people there who were afraid for their children. There were a lot of women there who were afraid for their children, for themselves and even for their mothers.

“Because no one is safe.

“Rhiannon’s son knows I was there. I tucked him in as he went to bed, and I said ‘I have to go’.

“I told him we were going to try to stop the boats with the bad men on.

“He said ‘go and do it – give them the message’.

“He deserves everything that those who were there were doing”.

Ms Whyte said there was “no violence”, adding “it was the calmest place to be considering how angry people were”.