Sunday night in Portsmouth, hundreds of men in balaclavas tried to physically stop an RNLI lifeboat bringing shipwrecked people to shore. When that failed, they blocked the buses taking them to processing instead.
The Home Office called it thuggish and intimidating. Even Nigel Farage said he "deplores" grown men hiding their faces to intimidate people on Britain's streets.
So here's who these volunteers actually are:
Last year alone, RNLI crews launched over 9,000 times and saved 272 lives. Migrant Channel rescues have consistently made up around 1% of RNLI launches in recent years. The other 99%? Swimmers, sailors, kids cut off by the tide. People exactly like the ones a masked mob just tried to stop from reaching dry land.
An RNLI crew doesn't ask who's in the water before they go in after them. They never have, not since 1824.
Blocking a lifeboat with a mob in balaclavas doesn't stop a crossing. It just risks someone drowning while masked men decide who gets to survive.
Retweet if a mob should never get to choose who lives.
Reply if you've got an RNLI story of your own. Unless you're here to recycle the "taxi service for migrants" line, in which case save your thumbs the effort, the numbers above already buried it.