Amanda Martin

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. As a teacher, I say that bullying has no place in school, especially from people pretending to be patriotic who are just doing harm to the people helping us in our society. I will be absolutely clear about the right to protest. I respect that right—I have been on many demonstrations. It is fundamental to our democracy, and I will always defend it. Many people who attended these demonstrations were local residents with genuine concerns about immigration, the asylum system and the impact on our communities. Some of them felt very intimidated by the turnout of protesters in balaclavas. Their concerns deserve to be heard, not dismissed. People should not be made to feel that expressing concerns about immigration makes them extremist or less entitled to have a voice. I understand the anger many constituents feel about illegal immigration, and I share their determination to stop dangerous small boat crossings. People are entitled to demand secure borders, an effective asylum system and firm action against the criminal gangs that profit from putting lives at risk. They are also entitled to be frustrated by years of political rhetoric and promises from Governments who have had the opportunity to act but have not. There has been progress under this Government, but the job is not finished. But there is an unmistakable line between peaceful protest and criminal disorder. Assaulting officers, obstructing ambulances, damaging emergency vehicles and intimidating rescue volunteers is not protest; it is criminal behaviour. We must also recognise that alongside concerned residents, there was an organised far-right element to these demonstrations. Hon. Members will be familiar with so-called Danny Tommo and the Patriot Platform. Through his network, far-right activists were mobilised from across the country to come to Portsmouth, often with their faces covered, to exploit local concerns, stir up division and contribute to disorder and hate. Such people are creating a protest tourism industry, bringing chaos to communities and seeking to profit from public anger. We should never allow those who exploit legitimate public anxieties to claim that they speak for everyone who attends a peaceful demonstration. My first question to the Minister is: what is being doing to improve intelligence sharing between police forces when organised agitators travel between areas, and what more can be done to hold organisers and online instigators accountable? Sadly, Portsmouth’s experience is not unique. The RNLI told me that it saw 140 reports of abuse and aggression across the country in September alone. The Association of Ambulance Chief Executives recorded over 22,000 incidents of violent abuse between 2024 and 2025—the equivalent of 62 incidents every day. A survey by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine found that 96% of emergency department staff had experienced violence or aggression from a patient or member of the public. Before these protests, I was already hearing from hospital staff in my city that they were facing racial abuse at work. These flashpoints are part of the wider problem of how we treat the people who provide essential public services. We must consider how these attacks can be prevented. One issue that is raised repeatedly in Portsmouth is the use of face coverings by people intent on causing disorder. There are legitimate religious and medical reasons for wearing face coverings, and those rights must be respected, but there is a clear distinction between those reasons and deliberately concealing one’s identity to commit offences and evade identification. At a subsequent protest in Portsmouth, which the Minister is aware of, police used powers to require the removal of these face coverings. Arrests were reduced dramatically and residents were able to express their views peacefully. Can the Minister explain how the Government are supporting local forces to use existing powers, and whether those powers need strengthening, particularly where police have not received prior notice of a protest? I also want to address online intimidation, misinformation and disinformation. Local workers and volunteers have been doxed, with photographs of their personal information, including home addresses, shared online. Far-right accounts have labelled them traitors and encouraged hostility towards them. People have received death threats and letters sent to their homes. One worker said that by the time he had left the protest after his 25-hour shift and gone home, he saw his address all over X. He was very distraught about that and what it would do to his family. I have also heard of one worker who has not been home since June because they were misidentified online. People who have done nothing more than their jobs are being left frightened about being in their own homes. The Hampshire Police Federation told me that officers understand the physical risks involved in policing protests, but after a 24-hour shift or a cancelled day of leave, it is going home and finding their face online that hits them hardest. Emergency workers are increasingly scared to use personal social media accounts to share pictures of their children with family, because they fear that agitators will infiltrate their accounts. New technologies are making this behaviour easier. The RNLI has had agitators entering its stations wearing Meta glasses and uploading footage online to cause further intimidation. A consistent problem is how difficult it is to get personal information and videos taken down from social media. Social media companies do not have good enough procedures to deal with this—we must press them to do better, and quickly. I have written to the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport about tackling doxxing. Although I recognise that digital policy sits with other Departments, will the Minister explain the work taking place across Government to protect emergency workers from online intimidation, and to ensure that harmful personal information is removed quickly? Alongside direct threats, we must challenge deliberate misinformation about the role of our emergency services. When those organisations put out factual statements explaining their work, they are often accused of lying, with hostility towards their staff and volunteers amplified as a result. The RNLI has a legal, moral obligation under international maritime law to assist those in distress at sea. Its crews are not political activists but specialist rescue workers, many of whom volunteer their time. There is a particularly important example from Eastleigh. While rescuing people from a small boat, RNLI crews also helped to ensure the safety of protesters who had gone into the water—the very people protesting at the RNLI’s involvement were saved by its crews. I am also concerned that elected politicians have helped to amplify misinformation and hostility towards our emergency services. Councillors both locally and nationally amplified information by livestreaming and sharing videos, and by ignoring hostile comments on their social media posts, while emergency services were carrying out their duties. Elected officials and politicians carry responsibilities that should never be used to legitimise intimidation or encourage hatred. Will the Minister raise with colleagues the need for a stronger standards regime for councillors, including how they can be held accountable when they use their position to encourage abuse or spread dangerous misinformation? What more can the Government do, working with social media platforms and trusted local voices, to challenge false claims before they translate into real-world intimidation or violence? I was delighted that Portsmouth city council yesterday agreed to grant the RNLI the freedom of the city, following the protests. It was disappointing to note, however, that every Reform councillor abstained. This debate is ultimately about the kind of country we want to be. We can disagree passionately about immigration—we can protest and challenge the Government and we can demand change, and we should defend the rights of people to do so peacefully, even when we profoundly disagree with what they say—but none of that justifies the assault or intimidation of the people who keep us safe, nor should legitimate public concerns ever be exploited as an excuse to spread hatred. The emergency workers we see being abused today may be the very people our families depend on tomorrow. Their duty is to help whoever is in danger; our duty is to make sure that they do it safely. Those workers do not ask whether somebody deserves to be saved, where they are from, their political background or what they have done. They simply answer the call. We must defend the right of people to protest, but we must also defend the right of those who serve our communities to do so safely. I hope the Minister will set out how the Government will protect emergency workers from violence, strengthen the response to organised disorder, tackle doxing and misinformation, support those suffering trauma, and ensure that anyone who attacks or intimidates an emergency worker faces swift and serious consequences. Our emergency workers stand up for all of us, regardless of who we are and what we believe. It is time we did the same for them.