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LONDON – A wave of disruptive, violent anti-immigrant demonstrations targeting migrant arrivals across southern English ports has drawn sharp condemnation from the British government, shining a new spotlight on the escalating tensions around the long-running Channel crossing crisis.

The most recent confrontation unfolded on Sunday evening in Portsmouth, where hundreds of protesters, many clad in dark clothing and masked to conceal their identities, clashed with law enforcement officers. The demonstrators had gathered to block rescue vessels from bringing newly arrived migrants to shore after they completed the dangerous crossing of the English Channel. After failing to halt the disembarkation, the group shifted tactics, attempting to block the route of buses transporting the migrants to a Home Office processing facility for asylum claims.

In an official statement released Monday, the government emphasized that the right to peaceful protest is a cornerstone of British democracy, but drew a clear line at disorderly, threatening conduct. “The right to peaceful protest is fundamental to our democracy, but it must never cross a line into disorder,” the statement read, condemning what officials labeled the “intimidating and thuggish behavior” of the assembled protesters.

The Portsmouth protest was not an isolated incident. It followed a similar demonstration just one day prior in Dover, the United Kingdom’s busiest ferry terminal connecting Britain to mainland Europe. Hundreds of masked anti-immigration activists blocked key arterial roads leading to the port on Saturday, creating massive traffic backlogs that disrupted the travel plans of thousands of passengers and held up hundreds of cargo vehicles bound for France.

According to multiple authoritative sources, both of the weekend’s demonstrations were organized by Daniel Thomas, a close associate of high-profile far-right figure Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who is more widely known by his pseudonym Tommy Robinson. The anti-immigration movement has gained increased traction in recent years, as the issue of irregular Channel crossings has been framed as a national political crisis by far-right politicians, including Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, who has used it to galvanize his base of supporters.

Successive British governments, regardless of party, have struggled for years to curb the flow of irregular crossings across one of the world’s busiest commercial shipping lanes. In 2023 alone, more than 40,000 people completed the dangerous journey from northern France to the British coast. Current Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s administration has touted a new cross-border enforcement agreement with France, claiming that enhanced joint law enforcement cooperation has already cut the number of crossings by more than 40% in 2024 compared to the same period last year.

The migrant vessel intercepted off Portsmouth that sparked Sunday’s demonstration departed early Sunday from Normandy, a departure point far to the west of the Calais coast that most crossing attempts depart from. The unusual route created a far longer, exponentially more dangerous journey for the estimated 140 people on board. Once the vessel was detected in British waters, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency launched a large-scale rescue operation that included multiple lifeboats, a coastguard helicopter, and a fixed-wing surveillance plane to bring all passengers safely ashore.

LONDON — In a groundbreaking step that reenergizes the global movement for colonial reparations, Jamaica has escalated its decades-long campaign demanding the United Kingdom take accountability for the harms of the trans-Atlantic slave trade by formally submitting a legal petition to King Charles III. Scheduled for filing on Monday, the action leverages a centuries-old legal procedure rooted in the earliest era of the British Empire, asking the monarch to forward three critical questions on British legal responsibility for slavery to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council — the highest appellate court for former Commonwealth colonies that still retain ties to Britain’s legal system. While the petition bears the king’s formal address, constitutional convention means Charles will not make an independent decision on referral, and will instead follow the advice of the sitting British government. The filing has been deliberately timed to mark the 242nd anniversary of the infamous Zong massacre, one of the most horrific atrocities of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. On that date in 1781, the Liverpool-registered slave ship Zong departed West Africa carrying 442 kidnapped enslaved Africans bound for Jamaica. When drinking water supplies dwindled mid-voyage, the crew deliberately threw 132 enslaved men, women, and children overboard to their deaths. The decision was coldly calculated for profit: the ship’s owners would be able to file an insurance claim for the lost “cargo” that would pay out more than the reduced price they would have gotten selling the already weakened and dehydrated captives at market. Widespread public outcry over the Zong massacre became a major catalyst for the abolitionist movement in Britain. While the British Empire banned the trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1807, full abolition of the institution of chattel slavery across the empire was not achieved until 1834. Ahead of the petition’s filing, Jamaican Culture Minister Olivia Grange told the Associated Press ahead of a pre-action commemorative church service in south London, the first of a series of events tied to the filing: “In relation to the wrongs that were done, we want answers. Once we get those answers, then our attorneys, our lawyers, will determine what the next move is.” Jamaica stands as one of the leading global voices pushing Britain and other former colonial powers to formally apologize for their role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and provide reparations to address both the original atrocities and the ongoing systemic harms that persist for the descendants of enslaved people to this day. King Charles has previously publicly acknowledged the horrific wrongs of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, though he has never explicitly backed demands for reparations. During a 2018 address to Ghana as Prince of Wales, he stated: “The appalling atrocity of the slave trade, and the unimaginable suffering it caused, left an indelible stain on the history of our world.” Successive British governments, however, have flatly rejected calls for both a formal national apology and reparations. When the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution in March this year framing reparations as a necessary concrete step to address the ongoing harms of slavery, the UK abstained from the vote. James Kariuki, the UK’s representative to the UN, explained the government’s position relies on the long-held international legal principle that events are governed by the law in place at the time they occurred. “There is equally no duty to provide reparation for historical acts that were not, at the time those acts were committed, violations of international law,” Kariuki said. Grange emphasized that the new petition marks a deliberate strategic shift, moving the campaign for reparations from purely political advocacy into the formal legal sphere. The document asks the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council to issue a ruling on three core questions: First, whether the forced transportation of African people to Jamaica and their subsequent enslavement was illegal under English common law, even at the time it was occurring. Second, whether the trade and enslavement of African people constituted crimes against humanity for which the United Kingdom retains legal and moral responsibility. Third, whether the UK holds a formal legal obligation to provide a remedy to the people of Jamaica for the exploitation and harm inflicted on their ancestors. Craig Prescott, a constitutional law and monarchy expert at Royal Holloway, University of London, described Jamaica’s strategic gambit as “quite clever.” The action uses a little-known, long-dormant constitutional procedure to force a formal reckoning with one of the most divisive and consequential issues in modern Jamaican national life. The right to petition the crown for redress of grievances in the administration of justice stretches all the way back to the Norman Conquest of 1066, when the monarch was formally recognized as the “fountain of justice throughout his Dominions,” as the Privy Council’s own website notes. Jamaica’s petition draws its legal legitimacy from an 1833 law that established the Judicial Committee as the highest court of appeal for civil and criminal cases across the British Empire. When the empire dissolved into the modern Commonwealth of independent nations after World War II, the committee retained this appellate role for member states that chose to maintain their legal ties to the UK. Prescott expects the petition will ultimately be referred to the Judicial Committee, where a panel of serving UK Supreme Court justices will review the case and issue a ruling. He noted, however, that justices have historically been extremely cautious about accepting such unusual petitions, as they bypass standard appellate legal procedures. “I think, at the very least, the board will look at this with a skeptical eye, not because of questions of whether slavery is wrong or right or otherwise, but just this is a very peculiar legal procedure that is sort of just one on the statute books that rears its head from time to time,” Prescott explained. Even if the petition is ultimately rejected, Prescott argues the outcome could still advance key political goals for the Jamaican government, which has already announced plans to sever formal ties with the British crown and transition the country into a republic. If the Privy Council, acting in the king’s name, rejects Jamaica’s claims for accountability, the outcome will highlight the fundamental disconnect between British institutional interests and Jamaican national aspirations. “It does raise the question of why have a head of state who really does not share the positions that are widely held in Jamaica,” Prescott said. “If those residual links (to Britain) don’t deliver an answer that is what they’re looking for in Jamaica, then you might be looking at severing those links.”

BERLIN – A seismic shift in German regional politics has left Chancellor Friedrich Merz mired in mounting political pressure, after the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) delivered a crushing defeat to Merz’s center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in Sunday’s Saxony-Anhalt state election, bringing the extremist-leaning party to the cusp of leading Germany’s first far-right state administration since the end of the Nazi era.

The outcome caps a dramatic surge for the AfD, which is classified as an extremist organization by Germany’s domestic intelligence service in multiple parts of the country. In the election held in the economically struggling eastern state, the party captured 43.8% of the popular vote – more than doubling its 2019 result – falling just a single digit of the 50% threshold needed to form an absolute majority on its own. By contrast, the CDU, which had held power in Saxony-Anhalt for 24 consecutive years, saw its support cut nearly in half, finishing with just 17.2% of the vote and 15 parliamentary seats.

While the contest is formally limited to state-level governance, its national and international ripple effects are already reshaping European politics. When Merz took office as chancellor, he made weakening the AfD’s growing influence a core campaign promise; Sunday’s result exposes that pledge as unfulfilled, leaving the chancellor politically weakened at a moment when Europe faces cascading crises, including Russia’s ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a suspected Russian sabotage campaign targeting NATO infrastructure, and tense trade and diplomatic negotiations with the U.S. administration under Donald Trump.

Coalition negotiations are already poised to be fraught and protracted, with the AfD on the brink of a historic milestone that would mark the farthest advance for a far-right party in modern German politics. The AfD’s lead gubernatorial candidate, Ulrich Siegmund, has made clear he intends to deliver on the mandate voters delivered. “Very clearly, we want voters finally to get after the election what they voted for,” Siegmund told German public broadcaster ZDF on Sunday night. “Over 44% voted for political change … and that must be implemented after the election.”

Siegmund has ruled out leading a minority government, leaving two plausible pathways for the AfD to claim power. The most likely route is a coalition with the hard-left BSW party, which shares the AfD’s pro-Russia policy stance and hardline opposition to immigration, despite disagreements on other domestic issues. On Monday, BSW’s lead candidate Thomas Schulze reaffirmed his party’s openness to supporting an AfD-led government. The alternative – a broad anti-AfD coalition uniting the CDU, Social Democrats, Greens, Left Party and BSW – would require five disparate parties to align on a governing agenda, a arrangement that political analysts across Germany call extremely unlikely and unworkable. Even if an anti-AfD bloc holds together, the AfD could secure a majority by luring just three defecting lawmakers from other parties, a risk that looms over negotiations. Regardless of the outcome, talks are expected to stretch on for weeks.

Rooted in anti-immigration and pro-Russia policy, the AfD has long been the largest opposition party in Germany’s federal parliament, with its strongest support in the former East Germany, where economic stagnation and discontent with mainstream national politics has fueled its rise. Widespread public frustration with the current federal government’s failure to reverse Germany’s sluggish economic growth has created fertile ground for the AfD’s gains, and analysts widely expect the Saxony-Anhalt result to energize the party’s campaigning in other upcoming state elections later this month.

Despite Saxony-Anhalt’s small size – it is home to just 2.1 million residents – the election drew outsized global attention. Unlike many other European nations, post-WWII Germany has never seen a far-right populist party lead a state, national, or major municipal government, and the legacy of Nazi rule means far-right political movements face uniquely intense scrutiny both domestically and abroad.

Reactions to the result have split sharply across global political lines. Tech billionaire Elon Musk congratulated the AfD on its victory with a “Well done!” post on his social platform X, prompting an immediate thank-you from Siegmund, who extended an invitation for investment: “If we take on responsibility here, I would very much welcome the opportunity for strong and constructive cooperation. Germany would then once again be a place worth investing in. Best regards from Saxony-Anhalt!”

U.S. President Donald Trump shared an election projection screenshot on his Truth Social platform without additional comment. Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev celebrated the outcome on X, calling it a “historic win for the pragmatic AfD that will put migration under control,” adding that “AfD will restore Germany and Europe by leading the commons-sense approach that migrant-friendly, warmongering Biden-think EU politicians tried to eradicate.”

Leaders of other European far-right parties also offered congratulations. Santiago Abascal, leader of Spain’s Vox party, wrote that “Congratulations to Alice Weidel and Ulrich Siegmund on this spectacular result, which offers great hope for Germany and Europe.” André Ventura, head of Portugal’s Chega party, added that “Germans, too, are increasingly opening their eyes to illegal and uncontrolled immigration, corruption, and the erosion of our freedom and identity. Congratulations!”

Not all international leaders welcomed the result. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk issued a sharp rebuke Monday morning, writing on X that “In Poland, only idiots or traitors could rejoice the AfD triumph in Germany.”

Official results confirmed that turnout hit a surprisingly high 77.8%, with the AfD drawing significant support from voters who stayed home in the previous regional election. Completing the seat count, the center-left Social Democrats won 9.3% of the vote, the Greens 8.9% and the Left Party 8.6%, each taking eight seats. BSW captured 5.3% of the vote and five seats. Merz is scheduled to address the public later Monday following closed-door meetings with his party and federal government leadership.