Not far from a camp in Dunkirk where hundreds of asylum seekers sleep, hoping to cross the Channel to the UK, are some chilling pieces of graffiti. There is a hangman’s noose with a figure dangling next to the word “migrant” and, close by, another daubing: a Jewish Star of David painted in black surrounded by red swastikas.
Utopia 56, a French group supporting migrants in northern France, posted the image on X on Christmas Day with the comment: “This is what comes from normalising the extreme right’s rhetoric, a visible, unapologetic, unabashed hatred.”
It is not known who was responsible for the graffiti. But one thing is clear: it comes after a period of growing activity on French soil by far-right British activists, some of whom have harassed and intimidated asylum seekers in the places where they sleep, or boasted of slashing dinghies to prevent crossings. And to many of those who work to support asylum seekers in northern France, that activity has been hothoused by the rightward shift of mainstream British politics.
“The reason why they’re coming out and doing this stuff is because they’re emboldened,” said Lachlan Macrae, of the group Calais Food Collective. He said his group had found water containers stabbed, or with soap poured in to render the water undrinkable. “They come with bulletproof vests and they go on to the beaches. They’ve been harassing people and streaming this content. As the ground is ceded to the far right, the far right has grown in response. Far-right groups in Calais are the norm now.”
French groups supporting asylum seekers also say that water tanks, which they provide for asylum seekers who have difficulty accessing other sources of water, are being vandalised and damaged, making them unusable.
Asylum seekers who have had unwelcome visits to their sleeping spaces by far-right activists have insisted that although they are fearful, they refuse to rise to the bait when the activists goad them.
While hostility from far-right agitators in northern France where migrants are camped is not a new phenomenon, unwelcome visits from British anti-migrant campaigners have increased in the last 18 months.
The first signs were in the summer of 2024, when Alan Leggett, who styles himself as Active Patriot, was pictured striding along French beaches calling for an end to Channel crossings.
He was followed last summer by activists from the far-right UK Independence party (Ukip), including its leader, Nick Tenconi, who filmed themselves in Calais confronting mainly Sudanese asylum seekers living in a squatted warehouse and intimidating advocacy groups who defended the asylum seekers.
In November last year, the phenomenon kicked up a gear. Raise the Colours, the Birmingham-based anti-migrant group that has draped union jack and England flags on lamp-posts and street furniture across Britain, launched Operation Overlord, a series of trips to France to “stop the boats” which Daniel Thomas, a key figure in the organisation at the time, said was “for our grandfathers, for our families and above all for our children”.
In the last few days, Thomas and Raise the Colours have parted company. Thomas continues to organise around action to “stop the boats” using the title Operation Overlord, prompting Raise the Colours to rename its northern France activities Operation Stop the Boats. They do not appear to have parted on good terms.
Named after the Normandy landings on D-day in 1944, Operation Overlord, when part of Raise the Colours, circulated appeals for stab-proof vests, plate carriers, high-powered torches, thermal cameras, drones and encrypted radios. Raise the Colours sought to recruit people online with an 11-page form described as a “volunteer pre-screen application”. One man who said he was ex-army posted a call on Facebook to “ex-squaddies” to go and patrol the French beaches 24/7.
Raise the Colours has livestreamed footage of activists harassing asylum seekers waiting to cross the Channel. It has also posted videos of activists holding up deflated dinghies that they claim to have slashed, thus directly preventing some Channel crossings. However, some French NGOs supporting asylum seekers in northern France say that the dinghies had already been abandoned in sand dunes when Raise the Colours found them. The anti-fascist media organisation Searchlight posted video footage of some members of Raise the Colours running away in northern France, although it is not clear who they were running from.
On Wednesday last week, France’s interior ministry issued a statement banning 10 unnamed far-right activists associated with Raise the Colours for “having carried out actions on French soil”. But Raise the Colours says it has recruited 22,000 people to support stopping the boats in northern France. Even assuming the numbers willing to travel to northern France will be significantly smaller, it raises questions about how effective the French ban on 10 activists will be. The current ban does not apply to anyone else who might attempt the same thing.
So far there is no indication that the ban has acted to deter the far right from harassing asylum seekers in northern France more broadly. Tenconi, as well as speedily rising through the ranks to lead Ukip, is chief operating officer at Turning Point, the UK offshoot of the US organisation founded by Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated last year.
In parallel to Raise the Colours’ Operation Overlord, Ukip has set up a “border protection mission”. Under that banner, Tenconi was filmed on a visit to France last June wearing black boots and gloves and shouting “fuck you” to asylum seekers.
During another visit last year, Tenconi and his associates shone torches in the faces of asylum seekers sleeping in the open air. They started chanting “you shall not pass”. Footage of the incident showed the asylum seekers looking startled and fearful.
There is no evidence that these visits have deterred people from coming to the UK, with more than 41,000 crossing the Channel in 2025, the second highest annual figure since crossings began in 2018. Steve Smith, the CEO of Care4Calais, said: “The vile harassment and threatening behaviour of these far-right actors is appalling, but let’s be clear, they’re achieving nothing other than gathering social media views.”
At the moment there is no absolute ban on far-right activists travelling to France to intimidate asylum seekers, and the UK Home Office has so far declined to comment on whether government or police in the UK are taking any action against those who have already done so.
Instead A Home Office spokesperson said:“This government is bearing down on small boat crossings.We have stopped 40,000 crossing attempts since this Government came into office through our joint work with the French. We have detained and removed almost 50,000 people who were here illegally. Our pilot deal with the French means those who arrive on small boats are now being sent back.”
So far in 2026, 520 people have crossed the Channel in nine boats, a significant number despite poor weather conditions that is likely to rise as the weather improves. And now that Thomas has split from Raise the Colours and is continuing Operation Overlord under different management, a new rivalry on the UK far right may only increase the headaches for the French government.
Ukip’s crowdfunder for its “border protection force” is still receiving donations, while Thomas is promising to put small teams in France in various locations on 24 January. In a rambling video post, he states of the French government: “Clearly we have rattled them very very severely.” He adds: “We are going to send people into France by air, land and sea. They will be given information about where to go.”
Raise the Colours’ rebranded operation in northern France, meanwhile, boasts of having military and data experts to assist it “to successfully assemble the biggest pushback ever seen by ordinary people”. The group adds: “This is an organised mission that will carry on until we have the final result of stopping the boats.”
