Labour peer demands Patriot Platform is outlawed as terror group after Dover and Portsmouth protests

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Baroness Chakrabarti likened the group to a 'private army' and compared them to Oswald Mosley's blackshirts

A Labour peer has called for Patriot Platform to be outlawed as a terror group after masked protests in Dover and Portsmouth.

Baroness Chakrabarti, the former boss of civil rights group Liberty, said the Government should consider proscribing the group because it "appears explicitly to intend and incite violence and intimidation".

The Labour peer served as the party's Shadow Attorney General between 2016 and 2020, and has long criticised the decision to proscribe Palestine Action - whose alleged members are on trial over a break-in at RAF Brize-Norton.

She told the Independent it was time to "at least give consideration" to proscribing Patriot Platform, as not doing so would open Labour to claims of "double standards".

Hundreds of members of the group led by activist Daniel Thomas, or Danny Tommo, disrupted the Port of Dover in protest against Britain's migrant crisis.

The group says it is motivated by "a love of country, responsibility to our families and belief in Britain's future".

But the Labour peer claimed their outfits, which were black and included face coverings, amounted to a "private army" and compared them to the blackshirts of the 1930s.

She said the difference between Palestine Action and Patriot Platform is "not whether we agree with one or the other’s politics".

"The former appears to have thousands of supporters interested in nothing but completely peaceful dissent and a few involved in criminal damage," she said.

"The latter appears explicitly to intend and incite violence and intimidation and its uniforms signify a private army."

Nearly 4,000 Palestine Action activists have been arrested since the group was proscribed.

"It's perhaps understandable that we choose to forget, but we have been here before in the 1930s with gangs of well-organised black-shirts inciting violence and seeking to intimidate.

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"Freedom of expression and association is precious but not without limits.

"Surely, this is exactly the sort of case that proscription under the Terrorism Act was designed for?"

However, the Labour peer shut down calls for the blanket banning of face coverings, as led by Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.

"We must protect the immunocompromised and those who reasonably fear repercussions when protesting outside the embassy of a repressive state or office of an abusive employer," she said.

"Still, I wonder whether it isn’t time to at least give consideration to the proscription of the so-called Patriot Platform after recent events on our south coast.

"That is if we as legislators, are not to lose the public over inaction in the face of rising threats, and perceived double standards."

Shortly after the Portsmouth and Dover protests, Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Matt Jukes said those wearing masks at protests were "sinister".

Deputy Chief Constable Andy Mariner, the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s national lead for policing protests, urged officers to use their powers to arrest protesters concealing their identities last week.

He also agreed with Mr Jukes on the protesters' appearance, saying: "If there were 200 people walking down my local town, I would be nervous as well."