The Locking Down of Gosport to Protect Illegal Migrants Shows Beyond Doubt That We Live in a Two-Tier State

This week, we saw something very sinister and un-British unfold in Gosport on the south coast of England. The police used draconian powers to effectively lock down over 80,000 residents while, at the same time, facilitating the illegal arrival into the United Kingdom of hundreds of military aged, unvetted men in mega-dinghies and their subsequent transportation away from the area in luxury coaches.

And, according to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, such men may also be taking part in the systematic rape of women during their journey to England. This is the calibre of the people whom the police are choosing to protect, while simultaneously arresting those who throw empty plastic bottles and swear at them in sheer frustration at their powerlessness to stop what is, to all intents and purposes, an invasion.

Police used Section 14 of the 1986 Public Order Act in Gosport. This meant that anyone wishing to assemble in protest was directed to a specific designated area. Breaching such conditions is a criminal offence and can lead to arrest. They also applied powers under Section 158 of the 2026 Crime and Policing Act and Section 60AA of the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act. These banned face coverings and allowed the cops to require people to remove them on pain of arrest. Such powers were employed, we are told rather abstractly, to “protect communities”.

If that wasn’t enough, senior officers also put in place a dispersal order under Section 34 of the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, covering the whole of Gosport. Under such an order, officers can direct people to leave an area and not return for a specified period. Anyone who refuses commits a criminal offence and is liable to arrest. It was this order in particular which led to some residents being asked for their identification in order to prove they lived in the town. Twelve people were arrested during the course of the protests.

How did we get here? How is it that in 2026 the authorities are effectively asking British people to present their papers whilst providing illegal migrants with a presidential motorcade to their taxpayer funded accommodation? It is hard to believe there are still some who maintain that two-tier justice doesn’t exist in this country – although it is now only really contested by those whose catastrophic ideas and policies have led to such a crisis in the first place.

Two further cases in highlight two-tier justice in operation. Daniel Thomas is an anti-migrant activist, otherwise known as ‘Danny Tommo’. He is also the person behind a group called ‘Patriot Platform’, which has been behind recent protests at migrant arrivals on the south coast. He was charged with criminal damage plus failing to provide the police with his phone’s PIN. Thomas allegedly slashed a migrant dinghy in the English Channel on September 22nd while a rescue worker was on board. He denied both charges.

Even so, he has been held in custody from the start. On September 29th the judge turned down a package of bail conditions offered by his defence team and remanded him in custody until a provisional trial date of the 1st March 2027. That means more than five months in custody before any jury hears his case. The prosecution itself had told the court it couldn’t say whether the damage came to more or less than £5,000. Below that figure, the offence carries a maximum sentence of three months. You also need the owners of the property damaged – in this case a people trafficking gang – to want to press charges. This is absurd, and is clearly a political prosecution.

Contrast this with the five men arrested near RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire. They were picked up in the early hours of September 27th after being found with three vans close to an air base which the US was then using for strikes on Iran. They were held on suspicion of explosives offences and of preparing an act of terrorism. A major incident was declared, multiple homes were evacuated and bomb disposal teams were called. Within 36 hours, all five were released on bail. Counter-terrorism police did stress that the investigation remained open, but it later emerged that no explosive material had been found.

The difference cannot be ignored. One man accused of damaging an inflatable boat is locked up for months, while five people suspected of plotting terrorism against a military base are back at home within a day and a half. The system comes down hardest on a politically unsavoury activist while showing more leniency in a case that, on its face, involves far more serious allegations.

It seems that we no longer have a right to protest, we merely have a licence to – one to be issued by the state and revocable at the whim of a police officer if it’s inconvenient, or if the gathering might offend the sensibilities of the commentariat.

The freedom to stand in the street and shout at power was won over the course of centuries by Levellers, Chartists, suffragettes and many more. It is now being dismantled not by tanks, but by statutory instruments.

Paul Birch is a former police officer and counter-terrorism specialist. You can read his Substack here.