Three police forces on the south coast of England are working to protect lifeboat volunteers, staff and buildings from rightwing activists who blame the Royal National Lifeboat Institution for helping asylum seekers to land on the British coast.
Dozens of Dorset police officers were posted outside the charity’s headquarters in Poole on Wednesday evening as about 50 people gathered to protest against the RNLI’s involvement in the small boats crisis.
Hampshire police were patrolling RNLI sites amid fears that people and assets may be targeted, while the Sussex force was investigating “offensive and threatening” remarks made on social media.
The RNLI has vowed to continue to rescue asylum seekers in the Channel despite attacks from rightwing activists after its involvement in a rescue on Sunday in which a dinghy carrying asylum seekers was brought into Portsmouth.
RNLI bosses said workers had been subjected to online and physical abuse and there had been “baseless” rumours circulating that the charity had housed asylum seekers or moved them to secret locations after helping them to shore.
The charity emphasised that responding to small boats was only a tiny percentage of its work and updated its webpage explaining its work in the Channel, which includes powerful testimonies from volunteers involved in the operations.
The protest outside the RNLI’s headquarters was attended by groups including the Poole Patriots and Hampshire Resistance.
Protest leaders handed out rape alarms to women, claiming they were at risk from men brought into the UK by the RNLI, and called for people to stop donating to the charity.
Mandy Ward, a member of Hampshire Resistance, claimed the RNLI was being compromised by its work with small boats in the Channel. “They are acting as a taxi service to people who are not in distress at all,” she said.
Another protester, Marianne, said she had been donating to the RNLI for decades but had cancelled her subscription. “It breaks my heart to do that but I’m disgusted that the government is using the RNLI like this. It’s not what the RNLI is there to do.”
Steve, a former soldier, said: “I’m urging people to stop funding them. It’s a shame – we need the lifeboats but we must stop this invasion.”
Images of some RNLI crew members who were apparently involved in the operation on Sunday have been published on social media with the accusation that they were complicit in an “invasion” of the UK.
Sussex police said: “We are aware of offensive and threatening commentary towards RNLI volunteers circulating on social media. We are proactively supporting our partners in the RNLI regarding the safety of their staff and volunteers.
“Investigations are ongoing to establish if there are any criminal offences in the social media content.”
An RNLI staff member in Poole, who asked not to be named, said security had been stepped up.
“I think it’s fair to say that lots of people who work and volunteer for the RNLI are feeling nervous at the moment,” they said. “Most people who work here believe in what the RNLI stands for and it’s upsetting to see our work attacked by a few people.”
A second staffer said: “There’s also been lots of support and promises of donations from people who want to make the point that they think we are doing the right thing.”
Peter Sparkes, the RNLI chief executive, said that for more than 200 years the RNLI had rescued people without judgment, fear or favour.
“Yet [staff and volunteers] and their families are being threatened by those who would hide behind a balaclava or a keyboard,” he said. “Their action, in contrast, is wholly unacceptable in a civilised society.”
Sparkes said rumours that the RNLI housed asylum seekers on its premises, or that there were RNLI missions to move migrants to secret locations were “completely baseless and untrue”.
The charity said RNLI lifeboats launched 9,058 times in 2025 but only 109 of those call-outs were to small boats in the Channel, representing 1.2% of its rescue work.
It said almost 95% of those who crossed the Channel in small boats last year were picked up by the UK Border Force.
One of the testimonies on the RNLI’s small boats webpage came from Dan, a volunteer helm at Walmer lifeboat station in Kent.
He said: “One thing I would like people to understand is that these people genuinely need our help.”
Speaking about one rescue in the Channel, he said: “We launched to an overcrowded, unseaworthy small boat that was taking on water. One family was so scared. They were screaming. Their boat was sinking in front of their eyes. It was a horrible, horrible situation.
“We managed to rescue that family. We stopped them from drowning. There was a little girl on the boat. She looked me straight in the eye and said: ‘I love you, thank you.’
“As a father, that went straight to my heart. That rescue cemented in my head that what we are doing as an organisation is exactly the right thing.”
Paula, a volunteer lifeboat crew member at Dover, described another Channel rescue: “When I arrived on scene, it was a shock. There were people in the water, some disappearing under the water.
“There was this man holding on to the edge of the boat. He had no strength left. I leant over, lay on my front and I grabbed his arms, and he had no strength to hold me. I looked into his face and his eyes were wide, his face was grey. He was so scared.
“I just knew that if I let him go, he wouldn’t be there. I also knew that there was absolutely no way I was going to let him go. I held on to him and I called for help from my colleagues, and together we pulled him to safety.”
The charity said it responded to small boats in the Channel when HM Coastguard reported that people might be in danger at sea.
It continued: “International maritime law outlines that any vessel that becomes aware of people in distress at sea must take all reasonable measures to assist. All small boats crossing the Channel are classed as being in distress.
“The RNLI is one of several declared search and rescue capability providers and, under long-established procedures, RNLI volunteer crews respond to anyone at risk of drowning, regardless of who they are or how they came to be in difficulty.
“The men, women and children who find themselves in distress and sinking in one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes are no exception. Our crews will go to their aid today when tasked, just like generations of lifeboat crews have done before them, in wartime and peace.”
The charity rejected the accusation that it was a “taxi service” for asylum seekers.
“We are not. HM Coastguard coordinates maritime search and rescue operations around the UK. Our lifeboat crews are tasked to assist people who are in difficulty, both in the Channel and around the coast of the UK.
“RNLI crews launch to the rescue, doing everything they can to save lives, without any thought to where the people they rescue are travelling from, nor their migrant status.”
The febrile atmosphere on the south coast was illustrated when rightwing activists arrived at a hotel in Portsmouth on Tuesday believing that asylum seekers were being housed there, only to find they were a cricket team from Pakistan.
