On Danny Tommo and the Portsmouth Counter-Gang Protest

On a recent stream, I poured significant scorn on the absurdist state theatre surrounding Danny Tommo and his blockades of various ports using gangs of black-clad masked men. Here I will summarise my basic argument:

1. The protest cycle is kayfabe (staged political theatre)

If an event is given breathless, coordinated coverage across left- and right-leaning outlets that simultaneously introduce a previously obscure figure as either villain or hero, then the event is being treated as a media storyline rather than a spontaneous civic action. The media does not give blanket coverage to anything it does not wish to give attention to; it is not a neutral reflection of reality but a constructed reality, a pseudo-reality (in Walter Lippmann’s sense) or hyperreality (in Jean Baudrillard’s sense). The Portsmouth/Dover actions received that blanket coverage (‘Who is Danny Tommo?’ pieces; live pro-wrestling-like confrontation between Tommo and Zia Yusuf broadcast widely on every network). Therefore, the actions are being treated as a media storyline. Even if this can be explained away as ‘this is just the media doing its job’, it has still collectively decided to cover this story in a breathless way while in the past it has decided to ignore or play down or simply not cover many other stories, including directly comparable stories involving dissident British political groups.

If police negotiate with, rather than disperse or arrest, organisers who have just blockaded ports and incited confrontation, while the same state apparatus would arrest comparable unsanctioned actors, then the organizers are operating inside permitted bounds. Police negotiated with Tommo and allowed the TV promo; comparable figures would not receive that treatment, an instance of the much vaunted ‘two-tier policing’ Tommo’s most vocal cheerleaders squawk about incessantly. Therefore, Tommo is operating inside tacitly permitted bounds. Even if this can be explained away as ‘police incompetence’ the actual function of their decisions is that this has been permitted. Remember that political kayfabe need not actually be scripted like pro-wrestling, but it might as well be.

Even if it’s not scripted, it might as well be.

If an action is both a media storyline and inside permitted bounds, then it is state-adjacent theatre (kayfabe), not autonomous resistance. Therefore, the Portsmouth/Dover cycle is state-adjacent theatre. Even if there is no direct coordination between the various players involved (Tommo, the media, the police), the net effect of their actions is that this story has been permitted into official discourse to become part of the endless conversation in a way that so many other stories are not, with Tommo as the newly established ‘face’ of it all.

2. Tommo / Patriot Platform is a honey trap and containment vehicle

If an organizer with a serious criminal conviction, subsequent entry into a known funded network, and admitted overseas think-tank money — who has ongoing and regular contact with law enforcement — then collects name, DOB, phone, address and postcode with no functioning privacy policy, then the organization is structured to identify and catalogue participants. Tommo has exactly this biography (2016 attempted kidnapping conviction; MEF funding overlapping Tommy Robinson’s; Patriot Platform signup form as described). Therefore, Patriot Platform is structured to identify and catalogue participants as a data-harvesting operation. Even if it can be explained away as incompetence by Tommo rather than malign intent the actual function of the operation is data harvesting since the police could very easily obtain those records. Whatever the actual case: Patriot Platform is a high-visibility, data-hungry, personality-driven vehicle led by a man with a criminal record, poor opsec, and a Reform-adjacent electoral pitch. You have to view this as structurally compromised even if you cannot prove there’s a handler.

If participants are catalogued and the same figure is given a media ‘push’ while genuine extra-parliamentary groups are prosecuted, then the figure functions to crowd out unsanctioned organization. The contrast between the treatment of Tommo and other British nationalists in this context is stark. Therefore, Tommo functions to crowd out unsanctioned organisation. Even if Tommo is not directly working with or for anyone else or the British state, the net results of his actions are useful for the British state and they are de facto sanctioned while other groups are de facto prohibited. Incidentally, all your analyses should be de facto, since de facto is the only thing that actually matters.

If a figure both catalogues participants and crowds out unsanctioned organisation, then that figure is a honey trap / counter-gang in the Frank Kitson sense. Therefore, Tommo functions as a honey trap / counter-gang whether or not he even knows it. Even if he’s completely independent and everything I’ve discussed can be explained away one way or the other, his structural role is now as counter-gang — a Kitson-like agent does not even need to be orchestrating it directly (or even there at all).

3. Small boats are a symbolic issue maintained by the British establishment, not a binding constraint

If a government possesses unused legal and operational tools that would stop a given flow (naval intercept-and-return, denial of asylum for illegal arrival, end of hotel pull-factor, accelerated removal) and does not use them, then continuation of the flow is a choice. Those tools exist and have not been used to the point of stopping the crossings. Therefore, continuation of small-boat crossings is a deliberate choice made by the British establishment.

Small-boat arrivals are a very small share of total immigration inflows (5% at the very highest). If a highly visible, emotionally charged subset of a larger problem is kept in the headlines while the larger legal/semi-legal inflows and other structural files (local-government reorganisation, fiscal trajectory, housing) receive less attention, then the subset functions as an attention sink. This pattern holds with the small boats. Therefore, small boats function as an attention sink, which is useful for the ruling class because it means focusing on the relatively easy issue of illegal immigration rather than the much more difficult issues of demographic change, British identity and legal immigration (not to mention all the other issues it provides cover for).

If a problem is both chosen to continue and functions as an attention sink, then solving it would not address the country’s core predicament and would remove a useful political instrument. Stopping the boats tomorrow would not materially change the predicament most nationalists say they care about, and would cost the political class a useful instrument. Tommo has done the British establishment a great service by focusing attention back on small boats (and on voting for Reform UK).

4. The emotional ‘do something’ response is the intended outcome and it is deliberately ginned up by slop-right media both mainstream (GB News, TalkTV etc) and social.

If an audience is offered only the dichotomy ‘boo the fascist’ vs ‘cheer the lad who’s doing something,’ and the second option leads people to supply data and energy to a contained vehicle, then the emotionally satisfying option is the one the operation requires. Both mainstream media and slop right social media present that dichotomy; Patriot Platform converts the second option into a mailing list and a self-avowed Reform-oriented ‘voting bloc.’ The intended uptake is emotional attachment to the contained vehicle, not disruption of the underlying structure of things.

Overall Conclusion

Whether Tommo is 1. (at best) a vain grifter or useful idiot the police who would prefer as the face instead of someone harder or 2. (at worst) an actual directed asset in the strictest sense of a Kitson counter-gang, the correct response to all this is to refuse the dichotomy, see the trap for what it is, disengage with slop cycles that give the system more power, and literally do anything else — including mashing your face in plates of cream — than getting yourself involved with these glowy operations. My point in hammering this note repeatedly is not to say ‘do nothing’ but rather that in these specific cases ‘doing nothing’ is objectively better than the ‘something’ that is being done.