The far-right agitators travelling to Calais to abuse small boat migrants
D.Wearing a black T-shirt, black hat and a pair of black leather gloves, UKIP leader Nick Tenconi addresses the camera from a road in northern France. Addressing “men in Britain” directly, he’s here to trumpet a disturbing new trend, telling the camera it could be “the next big thing”: trips to northern France to harass small-boat migrants.
“Why don’t we come here and make them feel incredibly unwelcome and create a hostile environment?” he asks.
This year far-right agitators have been organizing trips to Calais and Dunkirk to harass migrants waiting to attempt the perilous Channel crossing from France to England, and the well-wishers who support them. Apparently unhappy with targeting asylum seekers in the UK, these men traveled to Northern France to film poor sleeping migrants, waking them up in the middle of the night with flashing lights and telling them they were not welcome in Britain.
In June, Mr Tenconi said British men who wanted to prevent immigration to Britain had a “duty” to come to France and harass poor immigrants. He has made several visits since then, and reports of groups of men harassing asylum seekers have become a regular occurrence for NGOs working in Calais.
While UKIP, a registered political party, claims to be “leading” the trips, others are also making the journey, including a group called ‘Raise the Colours’, which took part in the raising of British flags this summer.
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The UKIP visits are part of a new project called ‘Border Protection Mission’, an initiative that has raised more than £21,000 so far, according to its online fundraising account.
Charity workers who support poor migrants in Calais with their most basic needs are also under threat from a recent UKIP YouTube video focusing on the work of French NGO Utopia 56.
During a recent visit around September 10, aid workers received messages from refugees saying they had been attacked by a group of British men who took their blankets, personal belongings and life jackets.
On 30 September, UKIP released a video showing men approaching groups of homeless migrants barely sleeping at night and aggressively shining flashing lights on them until they woke up and ran away from the crew.
In the video uploaded to the party’s The men appear to be shouting “You can’t pass” to the sleeping refugees.
Mr Tenconi appears to have been to northern France four times since becoming UKIP leader in February; The first was apparently to comb the area in June, and then returned in July, September and November, where he directly confronted NGO workers and refugees.
Activist Ryan Bridge has also been in northern France in recent weeks with a group of men under the ‘Raise the Colours’ banner. In a video posted on YouTube in mid-November, he filmed himself shouting “You are not welcome in our country” as he advanced towards a small boat in the waters off the coast of northern France.
Six men stood on the beach, dressed in black and with GoPros strapped to their chests, looking at the camera. Described by one attendee as “eight lads from Birmingham”, they claim to have managed to stop people from boarding boats to England. “We will not give up on this, we will continue this,” he said.
After that, Bay Bridge hired Tommy Robinson’s partner, Daniel Thomas, known as Danny Tommo, who runs a YouTube account with 120,000 subscribers. The couple recently returned to France and claimed they destroyed the boat they found on the beach.
Supporters are encouraged to fund Mr Thomas’ work by joining a membership channel on YouTube, which costs between £4.99 and £17.99 per month. Mr. Thomas also said that the ads in his videos “will help fund the next mission.” The duo had launched a website for their campaign called “Operation Overlord” but this appears to have now closed.
A charity employee who works for the charity organization Care4Calais, but whose name we did not mention for security reasons, said that they added a section about the far-right’s visits to Dunkirk and Calais in the briefing prepared for aid volunteers.
“We saw UKIP come out in the summer and have had Raise the Colors come out a few times since then,” they explained.
“They’ve become pretty common over the last few weeks. We’ve seen videos of them digging up and cutting up boats.”
“Others have also visited, but it is difficult to know which organization they belong to.
“For example, after UKIP visits, we received reports that a group of people were wandering around the Dunkirk area in the early hours, harassing people and stealing life jackets. People were telling us what was happening when we arrived on the scene. We were getting regular reports that the British were there and were mistreating them.”
The renewed increase in visits and reports of abuse has made workers at the refugee charity Care4Calais more careful and attentive in their work. Risk assessments have been updated and evacuation procedures reviewed.
The Care4Calais worker explained that the rise in hostility towards immigrants in France was also mirrored across the Channel in England, with asylum seekers or black people living near large areas being followed and filmed.
A researcher from Hope Not Hate, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation, explained that UKIP was evolving from a more traditional political party to one focused on street politics. The party under Mr Tenconi has three main themes: Christian nationalism, the fight against communism and return.
“It’s this scary aspect of it. [Nick Tenconi] bending over. It actively encourages the British public to create a hostile environment. But he is very good at walking on the side of legality. UKIP has a very specific style now. Tenconi are confrontational and aggressive; He especially tries to demonize NGO workers, this becomes a school bully style.
“He will approach people and call them dirty little communists and domestic terrorists. In one case, when a person shouts, he mocks the pitch of his voice and tells them to calm down.”
“What makes these trips to Calais dangerous is that they normalize the harassment of asylum seekers and position this harassment as a kind of public duty.
“We’ve seen an increase in racist attacks, racist graffiti, verbal abuse of people. And when you have someone like Tenconi…who gets a fair amount of traction culturally within the far right, saying they need to create a hostile environment that poses a danger to people.”
“This poses a danger to any individual who is not white and Christian, because if someone is going to racially harass people, they are not going to stop to ask them how long they have been here.”
Answer to questions IndependentA UKIP spokesman said activists had made many trips to Calais “to provide information about the invasion of Britain by illegal immigrants”.
They said their team was “threatened with a gun, assaulted, and our vehicles were attacked by illegal immigrants.”
They also alleged that Mr Tenconi “was spat on by NGO workers, had cannabis smoke blown in his face and was subjected to serious verbal abuse by employees of this so-called charity.” They emphasized that “UKIP activists have not broken any laws and have consistently operated calmly and peacefully” and said that “NGOs lie to cover up the appalling behavior of migrants and also their volunteers”.
Ryan Bridge and Daniel Thomas did not respond to requests for comment.
In the video, released in mid-November and shot after a night out on the French coast, Mr. Thomas speaks to the camera with the Bay Bridge in the background. “That way, if it’s done right, you won’t break any laws… We’ll put the plan together.”
“Get ready, because the call is coming,” he tells his video, which currently has 219,000 viewers.
