00:01The UK government branded hundreds of masked demonstrators as thuggish after they blocked
00:07roads in an attempt to prevent asylum seekers leaving Portsmouth on Sunday. The protest came
00:14after around 140 migrants arrived by small boat as tensions over channel crossings continued to
00:20mount. We condemned the intimidating and thuggish behavior we saw in Portsmouth,
00:25a spokesperson for the UK's Home Office said in a statement. Sunday's protest followed a similar
00:32demonstration on Saturday when masked crowds blocked access to the port of Dover. French
00:38authorities said the vessel carrying the 140 migrants had departed from the Baie de Seine in
00:45Normandy, an unusually long and riskier route compared with the boats that typically depart
00:50from closer to Calais and land near Dover. The unrest comes despite recent data suggesting
00:57crossings are slowing. The Home Office said channel arrivals in August fell to their lowest level
01:03since records began in 2018, with migrants' numbers at their lowest since 2020. The average
01:11number of passengers per boat has been rising in recent months. However, overall 16,513 migrants
01:19have crossed the channel by small boat so far this year. It is a small fraction of all arrivals in
01:26Britain which total over 800,000, most of which come through legal routes on student or work visa.
