Yesterday’s protests in Dover appeared to be well organised. Men in balaclavas and dark clothing descended on the port city early in the day — itself a significant detail. Working in police public order intelligence, back when forces maintained such capabilities, we never underestimated the motivation of people who were prepared to get out of their beds first thing on a Saturday morning. This was especially true of far-Right protesters, who have traditionally never been as organised as their Left-wing counterparts. Yet this protest, organised by a group called Patriot Platform to oppose mass migration, bucks the trend, copying the tactics and organisational chops of groups such as Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil and Palestine Action.

While the attendees dispersed by midday with no arrests, yesterday’s events suggest a radical Right-wing protest scene may finally be emerging in the months following demonstrations against asylum hotels and the police handling of the Henry Nowak affair. Forces are in disarray, as recent events in Middlesbrough demonstrate, and the police are woefully unprepared for any campaign of sustained mass protest. There simply aren’t enough public-order-trained officers to contain multiple incidents of unrest, the consequence of years of austerity measures.

This is a problem in light of yesterday’s events in Dover. Protesters appeared to be following a script. Groups were deployed to the main port and immigration reception facilities, while others blocked main roads leading into the city. The demonstrators also seemed to be copying tactics used in Belfast earlier this year, with masked and black-clad activists following directions from unseen leaders. Sympathetic live streamers also provided real-time updates, no doubt curated to show the protests from Patriot Platform’s point of view. The police response, however, was largely reactive. Kent Police released a statement explaining that they were engaging with protesters concerning a “public order incident”.

However, luck was on Kent Police’s side yesterday, as any use of force would have posed the usual headache: the inevitable and growing narrative of “two-tier policing”. British police have traditionally attempted a soft approach to protest, with negotiation and facilitation preferred to force.

In the past, critics have been scathing of apparently indulgent — if not entirely sympathetic — police responses to Left-wing protest activity. Left-wing groups would disagree strongly, pointing to the sentences received by Just Stop Oil’s Heathrow Airport activists or the recent proscription of Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act. Nonetheless, this is the trap, post-Southport, into which police forces have walked. There can be no doubt the roads of Dover count as “critical infrastructure” of the sort demanding immediate and robust policing to restore operational normality. But what would the plan be should the demonstrators return? Commanders will no doubt be wargaming these issues, while activists review valuable online content for their burgeoning activism-as-entertainment industry.

After the radical Right has revealed itself, there needs to be a public order roadmap for any future protest. Patriot Platform clearly understands funding, online operations and the benefits of aping Left-wing direct action tactics. The group can assemble significant numbers of motivated protesters and — perhaps most powerfully — it has harnessed the memetic power of the two-tier policing narrative. For the Right, this has now become an article of faith and a recruiting sergeant for the cause. At the Home Office, officials might wonder if the group will head in a similar direction to Palestine Action. As a cash-strapped government ponders police reorganisation into “mega forces”, chief constables face yet another intractable problem — one where they’ve been set up to fail.