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Ed Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, set out in the Commons new restrictions on buying goods made in Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The government, he said, ‘agrees’ there is ethnic cleansing in areas of the West Bank, carried out by ‘settler terrorists’. France, Canada, Denmark, Spain, Finland, Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Poland, Portugal and Sweden would impose similar sanctions. Israel announced as a ‘counter-measure’ the closure of the British consulate in Jerusalem. Hundreds of protestors, dressed in black and wearing face coverings, blocked roads at Dover on Saturday, some chanting: ‘Stop the boats.’ The next day, 120 migrants on a single dinghy were rescued in British waters in the Channel, having been accompanied by French rescue boats for ten hours, and taken to Portsmouth, where hundreds of protestors blocked roads and clashed with police. The government called the demonstration ‘thuggish’. Both protests were encouraged by Daniel Thomas, known as Danny Tommo. On the day of the Portsmouth landing, another 505 migrants crossed the Channel. More than 1,000 flights were cancelled because of computer failure at air traffic control. Lord Benyon, the Lord Chamberlain of the Household, wrote to lords-lieutenant to say that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex ‘are no longer working members of the royal family’.
