Portsmouth Protests

[NoisyBrickDog]

Why are they all shouting "Shame on You" towards the police - when it was the RNLI who brought them all to shore?

Surly they should be shouting this towards the lifeboat crews....?

What’s the government’s policy on dealing with this then? The people traffickers have identified our borders are wide open and so we are going to ……..?

The RNLI exist to save lives on water. That's all lives, not just British lives, and not just white lives. That's all lives, not just the lives of "the deserving".

Plenty of people take stupid risks in the water. The RNLI don't say "it's your fault for going fishing in a force ten, we will leave you to drown". The asylum seekers are taking stupid risks, but that is not a reason to refuse to rescue them.

People of all nationalities get into trouble at sea. The RNLI don't and can't check people's passports before hauling them out of the water. They rescued actual Nazis from the waves during WW2. The asylum seekers are not British, but that is not a reason to refuse to rescue them.

The RNLI have no landing rights in France and must return to the UK.

Given the above, the RNLI cannot do anything other than get these people off their dinghies and safely to British shores.

Still waiting for Burnham to tell us what he intends to do.

How am I supposed to know. Why don't you ask Burnham? He's the one in charge.

If certain members of "the public" are too thick to figure out what I've stated in this thread about maritime law and take it out on the RNLI, then they deserve the jail sentences they get.

I don’t suppose they’ll be reading your posts.

Convicted criminal Daniel Thomas organised and spoke at the RNLI protest. Vehicles were damaged and police officers injured.
The same protesters photographed RNLI staff with the purpose of identifying and doxxing them.

More than 90% are intercepted by HM Coastguard and UK Border Force so whether or not the government has a policy on the RNLI, it's not going to make much of a difference.

But everyone knows the French secretly (overtly) don’t care.

Be that as it may, working with the French to prevent boats leaving is still more effective than trying to change RNLI policies. Particularly as the RNLI don't pick up most boats.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2026/sep/08/how-a-black-clad-christian-vigilante-group-swarmed-portsmouth

The point is none of this should be happening in at all. The RNLI shouldn’t need to be to rescuing people trying to get here as the government should put things in place to stop it happening in the first place.

It is fair to make that argument about the government, but that doesn't make it more rational or less thug like to target the RNLI for saving lives.

The progressives want to keep the focus very firmly on the RNLI so don’t go asking any other questions around what we are going to do about super dinghies and the potential for more and more of them being safely brought ashore. At least when a ferry full of asylum seekers pitches up the volunteers won’t be heeded to insure safety of the occupants.

You seem to be missing the point. We (myself and other more recent posters) agree that the RNLI do a good job and no one should be abusing, intimidating themselves we agree it’s thuggish behaviour.

Yet you keep focusing and going on about it and bringing it back to the RNLI. We know, we agree with you in that but the paint still stands that this is a huge problem and that if someone got a hold of it in the first place and took a more firm stance then we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I think some people on here are happy with the arrivals of tens of thousands of undocumented men or don’t care either way and are focusing on the ‘far right’ vigilante behaviour that’s a tiny minority of what is an issue for a good section of society.

The far right need to keep taking about boat crossing because they are down 43%.

Quite! That’s what I’m noticing too
and have just posted about it. They keep bringing it back to RNLI in every comment to keep the focus on the minority of thuggish behaviour as if that represents that average person who has concerns. Distracting techniques.

'The RNLI should not be attacked' is not a progressive view point. It's just a bog standard British view point.

The liberal left just want an open border world where anyone can live anywhere. Imagine the carnage of that.

It's a thread about people attacking the RNLI.

Not sure how you can read boat crossings are down 43% and decide that means open borders.

I think some people just want a fight.

Yes I think the discussion around the role of the RNLI has become a bit of a digression.

I'm not the thread police but...
The initial post on this thread asked specifically about the RNLI.

If you want to start a thread saying AIBU to think that people coming on small boats should just be left to drown then you may - but this thread is about the reaction to the RNLI.
Asking people not to 'keep bringing it back to the RNLI' is really a bit daft.

Would the "carnage" of open borders be worse than the actual carnage of women and their babies being crushed in collapsing dinghies, as is currently happening? These crossings may be mostly made by men, but the women who try them are much more likely to die.

Okay. And on the other points raised?