CAMPAIGNERS have condemned the “pitiful” far-right protests in Dover, where fascists clashed with police and briefly blocked the dual carriageway to the port. 

Around 200 individuals from a collection of neonazi, white nationalist and far-right groups descended on the coastal town yesterday in a show of hate for asylum-seekers following a rise in refugee Channel crossings. 

An anti-racist protest gathered in the town earlier to show solidarity with asylum-seekers. 

Addressing the crowd, Kent Refugee Help’s Peter Keenan said that when society sees people who are fleeing war and turns them away “that says something about the state of your society.”

“We are not those people,” he continued.

Local councillor Aram Rawf, who came to Britain as an asylum-seeker from Iraq, said hatred towards refugees is being justified by sections of the media and organisations “by telling people they are coming to take their jobs, their houses, and that this country is full.

“I was an asylum-seeker 21 years ago and now not only am I working and contributing to the tax system, but I’m a local councillor and the voice of everyone in my community.”

Later, dozens of far-right protesters marched from the seafront to the A20, blocking the dual carriageway to the port for more than an hour. 

Some swung punches at officers and 10 were arrested, for offences including racially aggravated public disorder, violent disorder and assaulting an emergency worker.

Despite one organiser describing the demo as the “biggest call-out to patriots since WWII,” just a few hundred heeded the call. 

Stand up to Racism described the small gathering as “pitiful” but added: “Any time such dangerous and divisive forces raise their ugly head and try to build, it is vital that anti-racists come together to oppose them.”