As a study for how to deal with a reputational crisis the RNLI’s handling of several days of far-right protest is fascinating.
More than 100 masked protestors surrounded the organisation’s Poole HQ after a RNLI boat rescued 120 refugees from the English Channel.
Staff were abused online and in person with calls to cut the lifeline of donations made online.
But first some background.
What the RNLI is
The Royal National Lifeboat Institute – RNLI – is a charity founded in 1824 with a core mission of saving lives at sea regardless of nationality or belief.
In 2025, they launched more than 9,000 times helping 44,000 people and saving almost 400 lives. They operate a network of more than 400 ships around Britain and Ireland. They are a charity independent of Government tasked to respond to incidents by Her Majesty’s Coastguard.
Timeline
Since 2016, there have been more call-outs in the English Channel to small boats connected to asylum seekers travelling to the UK.
Since 2021, the allegation was first made to a large audience on X by Reform Party founder Nigel Farage that the RNLI was a ‘taxi service illegal immigration.’ The RNLI have rejected these accusations.
The allegations have been repeated by far-right creator Tommy Robinson, as well as LBC broadcaster Nick Ferrari and other far-right figures.
YouGov at the start of 2026 put immigration as the most important issue to 23 per cent of people in Britain.
In early 2026, far right groups protest outside the RNLI’s Poole headquarters and are met with counter-protests.
In September 2026, an RNLI rescue of 120 migrants from the English Channel is met with protest in Portsmouth from a far-right group wearing black balaclavas. This resulted in police action.
Online, RNLI volunteers are identified and abused, a campaign to encourage people to stop donating to the RNLI is launched. Individuals are ‘doxxed’. This is an aggressive campaign technique where names and addresses can be posted online for people to bombard them with hostile messages. The approach has been used in the past by a range of different extremists.
Elected politicians also double down on the attacks with Reform MP Suella Braverman asking that all ports be closed to the RNLI.
Elsewhere, on X there is a slew of hostile content including this AI image show a fighter jet sink an RNLI boat with the text ‘Make Britain Safe Again.’
How the RNLI responded online to protests
No doubt, there is detailed approach the RNLI put together and it will be fascinating understanding the big picture when this emerges.
There are some things that are clear from their digital footprint.
STRATEGY
Have a mission and stick to it
Looking at the communications, there is always strategy and tactics. The RNLI has a clear mission. It looks to save lives at sea. In this episode of criticism, the organisation has kept this lighthouse beam of clarity uppermost in their decsion making and communications.
This strategy wasn’t made up on the fly. It’s been the same one since the 1820s. It’s possible that an organisation with less grasp of their mission and weaker leadership would have taken a different course. Could they as an organisation maybe refuse to rescue certain people and not others? It’s difficult to see how this could possibly fly legally or ethically.
They didn’t attemp to fight every grass fire
What is striking is that the RNLI comms team didn’t go to every online post they could find to challenge every debate, conversation and piece of misinformation. This makes sense. Conventional wisdom is that if you respond to a post online you amplify that post. People will not scroll through the back and forth for a considered view. They will just read the amplified first post.
Incidentally, here’s an example of the kind of content:
TACTICS
They kept message discipline and waited
Strikingly, they did not appear to be pushed into commenting online straight away as the protests were playing out. None of the channels I could see responded with a formal or informal statement although I’m sure the RNLI press office would have been talking to journalists.
None of the corporate channels did so and also most importantly none of the 238 stations around the UK and Ireland. This is likely to be due to a mix of good governance and good training.
It’s entirely likely that social media admins were busy patrolling the comments posted to remove the more offensive ones. In addition, staff were advised not to wear RNLI-branded clothing on their way to shift or coming back.
They wrote a post a considered and weighted statement on their own channels
The RNLI’s own assets are considerable. They have 295,000 followers in Instagram, 703,000 on their corporate Facebook, 71,000 on LinkedIn and 269,000 on LinkedIn. Overall,. That’s more than 1.3 million. Impressive, but dwarfed by some politicians and news influencers.
They also have 195,000 followers on X. Interestingly, they have not posted since summer 2025 and didn’t do so in this episode. They have quietly withdrawn from the platform as have other organisations.
The RNLI statement’s headlines is underlying the core message: ‘The RNLI is a charity that exists to save lives at sea.’
On an occasion where you need to weigh-up every word and nuance, a piece of text works well. You can polish and get things right. You would be less able to get across the points you want through video or a round of media interviews.
The statement sidesteps the politics of the situation. It returns to the core reason the RNLI exists. That’s to save lives.
Note that the statement doesn’t enter into the arena of politics. There is no commentary of Government policy or direct criticism by name of a politician or campaigner. This keeps distance between the charity and politics.
Human stories further underline the RNLI core message
Once the dust settled, lifeboat station posts underlined the RNLI’s core message with lived experience.
For example:
And:
At RNLI Hoylake, they addressed more directly an outpouring of support with people wanting to contribute to the upkeep of the boats. Again, they avoided politics.
What these posts show is the day-to-day activity in saving lives.
GOVERNANCE AND PLANNING
The strength of having a network of station accounts
Around the coast of the UK and Ireland there are almost 250 lifeboat stations. From what I can gather, it is not mandatory to have a social media presence. Some are maintained centrally but the larger and more active stations do have locally-run social media accounts.
For example, RNLI Holyhead in Wales has more than 8,000 followers on Facebook, RNLI Galway has 6,000 on Facebook while in Scotland RNLI MacDuff has 800 followers on Instagram and the full-time Tower station in London has almost 5,000 on Instagram.
This local approach can build a strong connection with the local area they operate from.
For example, RNLI Eastbourne:
In the past, I’ve often used RNLI station accounts as part of an argument for fire and rescue services to run well-trained and maintained station accounts.
Measures against hate comments
Interestingly, several of the RNLI station accounts limited commenting to those who have followed the page to 24-hours or more.
This is a really useful technique that allows regular followers of the page to comment but limits those trying to spread hate.
Having a set of house rules means the RNLI are prepared
Like other large organisations, the RNLI has a set out house rules which they call ‘contribution rules.’ This governs behaviour. If it can be summarised in two words it is this: ‘Be civil.’
I’m quite sure the corporate page admins took extensive action against some of the more hateful comments.
Conclusion
Donations to the RNLI have risen, the organisation say.
Nobody has been directly attacked and key to the RNLI’s mission nobody has been lost at sea.
The RNLI have navigated through a treacherous spell of weather intact through good leadership and good communications. But all this gives the impression of being built on good training and good governance. As ever, build it in peacetime calmly not when cars are on fire.
For more, I deliver training to help you make sense of the changing landscape.
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Creative commons credit: The launch of the Portaferry lifeboat in County Down in 1987 by Ardfern.