The demonstration we saw on 5th September at the Port of Dover is new, it involved significant pre-planning, with hundreds of masked men being driven or put on trains across the Country, staying overnight, and climbing out of the back of vans. These unidentifiable men disrupted nationally important infrastructure, damaged this country’s economy, and they intimidated, caused harm, alarm and distress to residents. This is a new very well planned, very well mobilised form of protest, and is very different to what has been seen before and must get the attention it needs to protect the residents of Kent.

Responsible authorities in Kent, such as KCC and Kent Police must work together to ensure they are able to respond effectively to such unrest in the future and also look to prevent it wherever possible.

By reaching 5,000 signatures by 15th October, we hope that this urgent issue can be discussed at the Kent County Council full council meeting on the 5th November 2026. The below petition has been checked over with KCC officers prior to publishing.

Therefore, we, the undersigned, petition Kent County Council to:

Work with Community Safety and resilience partners, including Kent Police, to review and improve the collective strategic response to significant unauthorised protest activity where they pose significant disruption risks.  In particular, we urge KCC to:

1. Review the Highways and Community Safety response to the 5 September 2026 protests.
2. Work as part of the Kent & Medway Resilience Forum, alongside key partners such as Kent Police, to ensure joint response and communication strategies are in place to quickly and effectively respond to large scale disruptive protests.