News Beat
The far-right agitators travelling to Calais to abuse small-boat migrants
Dressed in a black T-shirt, a black cap and a pair of black leather gloves, Ukip leader Nick Tenconi addresses the camera from a road in northern France. In a direct appeal to “men in Britain”, he’s here to advertise a disturbing new trend, which he tells the camera could be “the next big thing” – organised trips to northern France to harass small-boat migrants.
“Why aren’t we coming out here and making them feel incredibly unwelcome and creating a hostile environment?” he asks.
This year, far-right agitators have been making trips to Calais and Dunkirk to harass migrants waiting to attempt the perilous Channel crossing from France to the UK, and the charity workers who support them. Seemingly not satisfied with targeting asylum seekers in the UK, these men have travelled to northern France to film migrants sleeping rough, wake them up in the middle of the night with flashing lights, and tell them they are not wanted in Britain.
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In June, Mr Tenconi said that British men who want to curb migration to the UK have a “duty” to turn up in France and harass the destitute migrants. Since then, he has made several visits, and reports of groups of men harassing asylum seekers have become a regular occurrence for the NGOs that work in Calais.
Though Ukip, which is a registered political party, claims to be “spearheading” the trips, other people have also been making the journey – including a group called Raise the Colours, who were involved in putting up union jack and St George’s flags this summer.
The Ukip visits are part of a new project called the Border Protection Mission, an initiative that has raised more than £21,000 so far, according to its online fundraising account.
Charity workers who are supporting destitute migrants in Calais with their most basic needs are also under threat, with a recent UkipYouTube video focusing on the work of French NGO Utopia 56.
On one recent visit, around 10 September, charity workers received messages from refugees who said they had been attacked by a group of English men, who had taken their blankets, personal items and lifejackets.
On 30 September, Ukip posted a video that showed men approaching groups of homeless migrants who were sleeping rough at night, and aggressively shining a flashing light on them until they woke up and fled from the crew.
The video, uploaded to the party’s X (Twitter) channel, showed men carrying the St George’s Cross, the union flag, and a banner saying that “Islamist invaders” were not welcome in Britain. The men appeared to be shouting “You shall not pass” at the sleeping refugees.
Since becoming Ukip leader in February, Mr Tenconi has seemingly been to northern France four times; the first, in June, was apparently to scope out the area, and he then returned in July, September and November, when he directly confronted NGO workers and asylum seekers.
In recent weeks, Ryan Bridge has also been in Northern France with a group of men under the banner of Raise the Colours. In a video posted to YouTube in mid-November, he filmed himself wading through water off the French coast towards a small boat while shouting: “You’re not welcome in our country.”
Dressed in black and wearing GoPro cameras strapped around their chests, six other men stood on a beach, looking at the camera. Described by one of the participants as “eight lads from Birmingham”, they claimed to have managed to stop people from boarding boats to England. “We’re not going to stop doing this, we’re going to keep it up,” he said.
Since then, Mr Bridge has recruited Tommy Robinson’s associate Daniel Thomas, known as Danny Tommo, who runs a YouTube account with 115,000 subscribers. Mr Bridge and Mr Thomas have been back to France recently, and claim to have destroyed a dinghy they found on the beach.
Supporters are encouraged to fund Mr Thomas’s work by joining a membership channel on YouTube that costs between £4.99 and £17.99 a month. Mr Thomas also said that the adverts on his videos will “help fund the next mission”. The pair had launched a website for their campaign called “Operation Overlord”, but this no longer appears to be live.
One charity worker who works for the charity Care4Calais, whose name has been withheld for safety reasons, said that they had added a section in the briefing for charity volunteers about the far right’s visits to Dunkirk and Calais.
“We saw Ukip coming out in the summer, and since then we’ve had Raise the Colours come out a couple of times,” they explained. “They have been quite prevalent in the last couple of weeks. We’ve seen videos of them digging up boats and slashing them.
“There have also been visits by other people, but it’s hard to know which organisations they are attached to.
“After the Ukip visits, for example, we had reports of a group of people going round the Dunkirk area in the early hours, harassing people and stealing their lifejackets. People would tell us about what had happened when we got on site. We get regular reports about English people being there, and that they are being abusive.”
The resurgence in visits and reports of harassment has made those working for the refugee charity Care4Calais even more vigilant and careful in their work. Risk assessments have been updated, and evacuation procedures have been reviewed.
The uptick in hostility towards migrants in France has also been mirrored across the Channel in England, the Care4Calais worker explained, with asylum seekers or people of colour living near large sites being followed and filmed.
A researcher from Hope Not Hate, who does not want to be named for fear of reprisal, explained that Ukip has evolved from a more traditional political party to one that is focused on a street style of politics. Under Mr Tenconi, the party has three main themes: Christian nationalism, fighting communism, and remigration.
“This is the intimidatory aspect which he [Tenconi] does lean into. He is encouraging British people to actively create a hostile environment. But he is very good at walking the side of legality. Ukip now has a very specific style. Tenconi is confrontational, aggressive; he is out to demonise. Particularly with NGO workers, it becomes a school bully style.
“He will approach people, calling them nasty little communists and domestic terrorists. In one incident, when one person shouts back, he tells them to calm down, mocking the pitch of her voice.
“What makes these trips to Calais dangerous is that it normalises harassing asylum seekers and it positions this harassment as a sort of public duty.
“We’ve seen an uptick in racist attacks, racist graffiti, people being verbally harassed. And when you’ve got someone like Tenconi … who culturally, within the far right, does have a decent amount of traction, telling people that they need to create a hostile environment – that poses a danger.
“It poses a danger to any non-white and non-Christian individual, because if someone is going to racially harass people, they will not stop to ask them how long they’ve been here.”
Responding to queries from The Independent, a Ukip spokesperson said that activists had made several trips to Calais to “report on the invasion of Britain by illegal migrants”.
They said that their team had been “threatened with weapons, assaulted, and had our vehicles attacked by illegal migrants”.
They also claimed that Mr Tenconi had been “spat at by NGO workers, had cannabis smoke blown in his face, and been subjected to severe verbal abuse by these so-called charity workers”. They insisted that “Ukip activists have broken no laws and have consistently engaged in a calm and peaceful manner” and said that “NGOs have lied to cover up the appalling behaviour of the migrants and also their volunteers”.
Mr Bridge and Mr Thomas did not respond to requests for comment.
In a video posted in mid-November, filming after a night scouring a French beach, Mr Thomas speaks to the camera with Mr Bridge in the background. “This way, if it is done correctly, you don’t break any laws … We’re going to get the plan together.
“Get ready, because the call is coming,” he tells the now 219,000 viewers of his video.
