Masked thugs are making British police look weak. It’s time to get tough like France and Spain

Strategic and geopolitical Adviser to governments and multinational companies and former BBC News Foreign Correspondent It is time to take back control. That isn’t just a phrase which might trip off the lips of the black-clad, balaclava-wearing anti-migration protesters who caused disruption in Dover and Portsmouth a week ago, and who are now planning further action. It’s also a summary of what is now needed to counter their activities and those of others. Britain has changed and policing must change. The ability of the black-shirted Patriot Platform to move faster than the police is just one symptom of a wider illness affecting law and order. There have been calls in recent days for this group of thugs to be arrested for their intimidating behaviour. Shouldn’t blocking entrances to roads and offices, wearing face coverings to protect their identities, be seen for what it is – intimidation? Isn’t that worthy of arrest? On a recent visit to Inverness in the Highlands of Scotland, a long way from England’s south coast, I saw young drug dealers selling on the streets, part of a fast-growing problem in that city. More worryingly, the foreign gang leaders who control them were driving round openly in fast cars, music blaring out of the blackened windows, seemingly without a care in the world – the possibility of their arrest was obviously unlikely. The police were nowhere in sight. Two snapshots of Britain’s policing challenge, two snapshots of Britain’s policing ineffectiveness. These separate events got me thinking about the contrast between policing in Britain in 2026, and policing that I have seen in France and Spain during my time as the BBC’s Europe Correspondent and now as a regular visitor to those countries. For almost 200 years, since Robert Peel founded the Metropolitan Police Force, Britain has taken pride in the fact that our policing is by consent. We accepted the legitimacy of the police and accepted their right to impose the law. It worked for a long time here, but no longer. Why has that consent policing, which once saw us all so friendly to the local bobby on the beat, broken down? Well, the reasons are complex. Society has changed, our respect for many parts of the state has diminished, sometimes the police themselves have damaged their own reputation by the way they have operated. It all adds up. Then, combine it with the impact of smartphones and technology. Britain has always had riots, strikes and crime. The speed of being able to organise a protest or commit a crime is different today than it was decades ago. When I watched miners fight on picket lines with police during the strike in the mid-1980s, there was a committee, stewards, slow communication to set it all up. These days, Patriot Platform can assemble fast, co-ordinate through private channels and mask their identities. They do not consent to be policed just as the drug dealers do not. The result is that policing by consent has become the policing of hesitation. Officers appear reluctant to act; in Dover and Portsmouth, arrests were not made, neither did I see any in Inverness. Sadly, if the old system no longer holds, it is time to consider something new. Time to move away from a gentleness that is no longer fit for purpose to something more robust. If people do not consent to be policed then they must be policed more forcefully. I have watched more times than I can count how the riot police in France break up protests when people refuse to disperse, wading in with batons and tear gas. It isn’t pretty but it works. In Spain, I often see the very visible presence of the Guardia Civil by the side of the road. They pull drivers over not just to check the car insurance but to see whether anything else unlawful is occurring. Their presence sends a signal: low-level law-breaking won’t be tolerated and the message is that if that isn’t, neither will any other worse forms of criminality. What would it mean in Britain? Police who have the confidence to act – many of the laws that would allow them to be more robust are already in place. Every region should have rapidly deployable public-order units to deal swiftly with unruly protests; every region should have much more clearly present street policing to deter general crime. In short, a move from consent to much more muscular enforcement, a move to ensure peaceful protest but minimum tolerance for organised intimidation and violence, minimum tolerance for all types of crime. I will not pretend that there are not risks in doing this. There will be some who worry that it crosses a line and human rights are reduced. And might it be a slippery slope if an authoritarian government comes to power that wishes to push muscular policing to the limit? It is a challenge for politicians of all parties. But the society that enabled policing by consent no longer exists. It’s time to try something else.