ANTI-RACISTS have told of their disbelief that no arrests were made when hundreds of “modern blackshirts,” their faces covered, blocked the Port of Dover at the weekend.

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds and Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick criticised the so-called “Stop the Boats” protesters yesterday, who marched through the Kent town on Saturday morning, chanting “Whose streets? Our streets” and “Stop the boats,” with dozens of police officers in their wake.

Mr Reynolds told a Sky News programme that peaceful protest is not “dressing up in costumes” and “disrupting people’s lives.”

But he declined to comment “on the security and policing side of it” when pressed on the apparent unpreparedness of Kent Police, who failed to lift a finger as the sinister masked far-right thugs spread alarm and fear among locals and visitors to the port. The force described the protest as “spontaneous” in a statement on X.

“I think on the whole, the police handle it very well,” Mr Reynolds said. “But look: peaceful protest, yes. Those kinds of scenes, absolutely not.”

Nigel Farage’s party’s economic spokesman also condemned the disruption on the same programme but, true to form, added that he understood the frustration with small boats crossing the Channel carrying migrants, thus effectively falling in behind the thugs.

Stand Up to Racism co-convener Sabby Dhalu said: “These scenes show that sections of the far right are prepared to turn words into action — these violent far right forces are a real and growing threat.

“It’s hard to believe that any other protest group — from stop oil to the Palestine movement — would have been allowed to blockade a major port without mass arrests and prison sentences. 

“The black clothes and military bearing are not accidents: these people are trying to look like modern blackshirts.”

Kent Police said no arrests were made during the protest, which shut off road access to Britain’s busiest international ferry and passenger port, adding demonstrators had dispersed by noon.

Stand Up to Racism co-convener Weyman Bennett said: “Mainstream politicians and the media have used the ‘Stop the Boats’ rhetoric for so long it has given confidence and legitimacy to far-right thugs to act. 

“It is a matter of urgency that the anti-racist majority that still exists in our communities doesn’t remain passive.

“We have to mobilise in every area this autumn to build unity and oppose the poisonous racist division the far right seeks to spread.”