Daniel Thomas, a 37-year-old privately educated former soldier from Portsmouth, has emerged as the figure behind recent anti-migrant protests featuring hundreds of balaclava-clad men in Dover and Portsmouth. Founder of the group Patriot Platform, Thomas presents himself as a champion of "working class" tradesmen despite his own comfortable, middle-class upbringing, and is increasingly seen as a potential successor to Tommy Robinson, for whom he previously worked as a bodyguard. His rise matters because it signals a shift in the far-right protest movement towards more organised, disciplined and intimidating street tactics, even as he insists his approach is "non-violent".

Thomas, who served briefly as a King's Royal Hussars tank driver before being discharged on medical grounds, is a convicted kidnapper, having been jailed for two years in 2016 after a violent knife-point home invasion in Hampshire over a wrongly alleged drugs theft. He has since rebranded himself as a Christian activist and, using the online name "Danny Tommo", led protests against asylum seekers, including one in Eastney, Portsmouth, where over 500 demonstrators tried to block a coach carrying migrants and clashes left police officers injured and vehicles damaged. His father, a university-educated man who later took his own life in France in 2022, and his siblings—now working in aviation and other professions—stand in stark contrast to the path Thomas has taken.