{"id":762696,"date":"2026-09-07T08:48:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T08:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/762696\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T08:48:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T08:48:13","slug":"government-condemns-thuggish-behaviour-in-portsmouth-after-second-small-boats-protest-of-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/762696\/","title":{"rendered":"Government condemns &#8216;thuggish&#8217; behaviour in Portsmouth after second small boats protest of weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Small boats protests creating &#8216;climate of fear&#8217;, says campaign group founderpublished at 08:45 BST<\/p>\n<p>08:45 BST<\/p>\n<p>      <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A row of police with riot shields standing in front of protesters at a port in Portsmouth following the rescue of 140 migrants from the Channel\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/31bd8301-8d0b-4695-942a-61b8fe4b795f.jpg.webp\"  width=\"1917\" height=\"1078\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image source, Eddie MitchellImage caption, <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Police holding riot shields stand in front of protesters blocking road in Portsmouth on Sunday night<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Small boats protests &#8211; like the ones in Dover and Portsmouth &#8211; are creating a &#8220;climate of fear&#8221;, according to the founder of campaign group Hope Not Hate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Nick Lowles tells BBC Radio 4&#8217;s Today programme: &#8220;To have 300, 400 people with balaclavas marching down the streets, stopping traffic, it is not just good enough.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He says police forces &#8220;need to get a grip&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Lowles says he understands some people are concerned about migration and its impact on &#8220;already stretched communities&#8221;, but says &#8220;we\u2019ve got the ballot box, we\u2019ve got different ways to register our protest&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He adds: \u201cThe images we saw over the weekend, just like the images we saw earlier this year, last year, and in 2024, is creating a climate of fear.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Fear among migrants and immigrants, fear among people of colour, fear amongst many people&#8230; I think the government needs to be far more robust in standing up against this.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A large group of protesters walk from right to left along the road. They're all wearing black clothing and balaclavas over their heads\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/65707000-4ad8-4581-8b4a-31c66819fd26.jpg.webp\"  width=\"1597\" height=\"898\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image caption, <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A large group of protesters wearing all black and balaclavas walking through the streets near the Port of Dover on Saturday<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Small boats protests creating &#8216;climate of fear&#8217;, says campaign group founderpublished at 08:45 BST 08:45 BST Image source,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-762696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=762696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}