In the aftermath of masked demonstrations that paralysed Dover's port and blocked a harbour road in Portsmouth, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has summoned police leadership to demand a more forceful and better-prepared response to anti-migrant protests. The gatherings, linked to an organisation called the Patriot Platform, have prompted the government to draw a line between lawful political expression and calculated intimidation — a distinction that will now shape how expanded protest powers are applied. At stake is a question as old as democratic governance itself: how a society protects bot