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ANTI-FASCIST protesters saw off a “sorry lot” of far-right groups in Dover on Saturday who had afflicted the port in protest against crisis-hit refugees.
Around 350 anti-fascists travelled to the ferry terminal town to counter the far-right and to see on its way a convoy of cars that was delivering aid to refugees in Calais.
The Anti-Fascist Network (AFN) said that only 100 immigrant-hating thugs turned up despite making online threats of mass violence.
“They couldn’t even muster a good chant as they went past us, most preferring to keep their heads down and stay silent,” the AFN said.
Left-wing Kentish protester Siobhan Murphy said that the anti-fascists were there to peacefully oppose members of groups such as National Front, North West Infidels and Keep Britain White.
Police arrested eight pro-refugee activists after officers on horses and in vans kettled the prosters on the main road to make way for the racists.
The Press Association reported that the activists had “refused to assemble in a designated area near Marine Parade.”
But an eyewitness told the Star the claim was nonsense.
“Clearly [kettling] was the police plan all along but it was not communicated clearly to the march except by force,” he said.
“It took ages for the fascists to walk up to the point where we were kettled — apparently they started fighting each other in one of the pubs in Dover beforehand.
“They marched past silently, went and spouted off at the port before trudging back.”
Protected by police officers, the far-right marched a short distance to the port to hear Cypriot-born English Defence League speaker Paul Prodromou, who also goes by the surname Pitt, rant about immigration.
Thirteen people were arrested including five neonazis, three of whom had been arrested before over alleged involvement in a protest in Dover on January 30.
A Kent Police spokesman said he could not confirm or deny whether one of the five arrested over the weekend was a man suspected of smearing a swastika onto a bus in his own blood. He had been banned from Dover.
