At the anti-migrant demonstration in Dover, where hundreds of men dressed in black and wearing menacing balaclavas kept their identities hidden, one muscular figure was far harder to miss.
He is Daniel Thomas, 37, the founder of Patriot Platform, a group he presents as a movement of “working-class men” — bricklayers, roofers and carpenters who, as he puts it, build the homes people live in and the roads they travel on.
But Thomas’s own background appears to sit uneasily with the blue-collar image he promotes for his supporters.
He was educated at a private school in Hampshire, while his father, Russell, was a university-educated skiing enthusiast who later retired to Brittany in France.
Despite those conventional middle-class roots, Thomas is also a convicted kidnapper who has served time in prison. Within parts of the far-Right, however, he is now viewed by some as a possible successor to his long-time associate Tommy Robinson, for whom he once worked as a bodyguard.
While Robinson’s now-dissolved English Defence League became known for loud and confrontational street protests, Thomas claims his own campaign will remain “non-violent” — even as its masked presence and repeated talk of putting “boots on the ground” have drawn concern and criticism.
Daniel Thomas made a dramatic appearance at a press conference held by Reform UK home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf (pictured), making it clear he was unimpressed
Thomas, known online as “Danny Tommo,” later livestreamed from the sea in Portsmouth after a dinghy carrying 140 migrants reached the English coast
A man believed to be Thomas is seen arguing with a police officer while standing in the water at Eastney beach on Sunday afternoon
More than 500 protestors took to the streets of Eastney in a bid to stop the asylum seekers being transported to an immigration centre
Thomas livestreamed much of the protest and, at one point, filmed a bus leaving the coast
It should be noted that the evidence on the streets of Portsmouth on Sunday night at the second protest wasn’t in his favour, with police officers injured and vehicles damaged.
Father-of-four and roofing company director Thomas, from Portsmouth, has a military background, having served as a tank driver with the King’s Royal Hussars.
But his Army career was cut short, having been discharged on medical grounds before seeing any active service.
Judging from YouTube clips where he is seen rallying his ‘troops’ and calling (not always successfully) for iron-clad discipline, the man known on social media as ‘Danny Tommo’ clearly feels his time has come.
His mission now is to launch a mass movement of ‘men’ to make Britain safe from migrants.
But who is ‘Tommo’, and how did he get to a position where he could outfox the police at Britain’s major ports not once but twice in as many days?
He has said that his violent past brought him to a turning point and forced him to recast himself as a Christian activist. He was jailed for two years in 2016 after bursting into the home of Graham Page in Hayling Island, Hampshire, along with two accomplices.
Thomas, who was in May this year a security guard for Tommy Robinson, has been hailed as the Unite the Kingdom leader’s long-term successor
The three men were armed with knives and shouted ‘you’re coming with us’ before punching the victim, pinning him against a wall and trying to force him from his home.
They had wrongly accused Mr Page of stealing £10,000 worth of drugs from them.
How Thomas ended up in such company isn’t clear, but it’s notable that only a year later his father posted a glowing tribute to Daniel’s younger brother Jack on his 16th birthday.
Russell Thomas wrote on Facebook: ’16 years Old Today… WOW where did the years go! And congrats on becoming trilingual, great job, well done!’
Tragically, Russell Thomas took his own life in France in 2022, aged just 60. None of Daniel Thomas’s three siblings seem to have followed him down the path of balaclavas and boots.
Brother Jack is now an aviation professional for Swissport, working at Edinburgh Airport, while sister Victoria is a yoga teacher and osteopath based in Brighton. She runs CPD classes for other yoga trainers and has worked as an instructor on a superyacht.
His other sister Charlie is an entrepreneur and business consultant who offers advice to start-ups.
And last night, Daniel’s mother Alison Thomas, 63, who lives in a neat terraced house in Chichester, West Sussex, appeared to distance herself from her son’s recent activities.
The mother-of-four said: ‘He doesn’t live here. This is my house. I don’t want anyone coming round here. I have nothing to do with it.’
Thomas’ father Russell, left, tragically took his own life in 2022 in France
Asked if she supported his actions, she said: ‘I’m just a lady living by myself with my German shepherd dog and I don’t want any aggravation.’
Daniel and his partner Jasmine appear to frequently holiday to Tenerife, staying in a luxury hotel last month.
His roofing company, named RMT Roofing Specialists Ltd, claims to be ‘rooted in faith’ and provide roof installations which reflect ‘our integrity and strong Christian values’.
After his release from prison, Thomas came up with his pseudonym Danny Tommo and organised marches throughout the country calling for Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, to be freed from a sentence for contempt of court.
Then in 2018 he was involved with organising a United Kingdom Independence Party ‘Brexit Betrayal’ rally at which Robinson spoke.
At the time, Thomas told the Telegraph that the attempted kidnapping was committed because he ‘got involved with some stupid people’, adding that ‘Everyone deserves a second chance. I came out of prison and turned my life around.’
Yesterday Thomas dramatically crashed a press conference held by Reform UK’s home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf, and made clear he wasn’t impressed with Nigel Farage’s verdict on his protests at Dover and Portsmouth as ‘disgusting’.
Thomas shouted to Mr Yusuf: ‘You have to understand, Yusuf, that what we’re trying to do and the reason the Patriot Platform has been created is not because of violence. We’re not looking to intimidate anyone.
‘Let me start by first explaining to you why the men are wearing masks. As you know, and as Nigel knows, the left in this country target us massively… The reason they’re covering their faces is because we know they’re going to be targeted.’
He added: ‘What Nigel Farage has done is not good. When you call people disgusting, yeah, you have to understand the reasons of why this is happening.’
Daniel Thomas (pictured, left, in 2019), the founder of Patriot Platform, was the man behind the protest which saw balaclava-clad men take to the streets of Dover this weekend
He cast himself as kingmaker, vowing that his followers would eventually ‘convert into a voting bloc’. He added that if Mr Farage ‘slanders me, they’re going to push us into other parties. At the end of the day, I do like what… some (other) parties are doing.’
Thomas insists Patriot Platform was formed to defend Britain’s borders, not to promote extremism.
But after an extraordinary weekend of blocked roads, delayed holidaymakers, masked protesters and clashes with police, the authorities – and politicians – face a question that is becoming harder to ignore: Is ‘Danny Tommo’ merely another rabble rouser – or the figurehead of a new, and increasingly organised, form of anti-migrant street politics?
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