'Tory hating' union members turned on Dover's Conservative MP Natalie Elphicke today when she came out to support them o

'Tory hating' union members turned on Dover's Conservative MP Natalie Elphicke today when she came out to support them over P&O Ferries' 'jobs massacre' of 800 crew.

Mrs Elphicke even held a 'save Britain's ferries' banner at the event with Labour's hard-left former shadow chancellor John McDonnell and amid calls for the Dubai-owned business to hand back their £10million furlough cash, she said: 'We supported them with furlough and they should be backing Britain and backing Dover'.

But when she began speaking on TV about the sackings being 'devastating' for the Kent town, union activists started screaming: 'We hate Tories, we are the Tory haters', 'shame on you', 'you're on their side' and 'you voted for fire and rehire', forcing her to abandon her interview. 

One protester confronted her saying: Turkish citizenship 'Tory anti-union laws allow bosses to get away with this'.

The Conservative MP replied: 'Nonsense, it's bad business behaviour' before she walked off as others yelled in her face.

The picket then marched on the docks, where police are parked at the entrance to the freight terminal and three P&O ferries - Pride Of Canterbury, Pride of Kent and Spirit of Britain - all remain docked. There appeared to be agency staff already working on the ships with security guarding the gangplanks.

There were also protests in Hull, attended by Ed Miliband, as well as in Liverpool and Belfast, where police guarded the ports as union members called for ministers to 'sink P&O' by nationalising it.

It came as MailOnline revealed the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are being urged to cut ties with the Dubai owners of P&O Ferries and campaign to stop the redundancies as calls also grew for the Government to claw back £10million in furlough cash.

Unions have accused the company of turning UK ferries into 'modern slave ships' with cheap labour.

One sacked worker at Hull told MailOnline that the agency workers brought in to replace them were on as little as £2 to £3 an hour, compared with the £28 to £30 hourly rate paid to British sailors.

A new video also showed the brutal and undignified way DP World treated sacked P&O staff yesterday, where security told the crew they had 'two hours to pack up' and get off the ferry just minutes after being sacked on Zoom.

The hired heavy in a high-viz told the group of shocked staff: 'I think two hours would be a reasonable time for you to pack your stuff up and be ready to leave'.

The workers replied in chorus: 'We need to talk to the union', to which the security guard, backed by colleagues, said bluntly: 'That's fine but you've got two hours'.

As P&O Ferries' failed to set a date to restart services and faces a boycott from Britons irate over the sacking scandal, it also emerged today:

• Devastated workers described dedicating their working lives to the company only to be sacked by video and thrown off their ships with their belongings in bin bags; 
• P&O claimed £10million in furlough cash during the pandemic - and tried and failed to get a £150million Government bailout.
  
  There are calls for the Dubai-owned business to hand any taxpayers' money back;
• Downing Street has warned P&O Ferries that there could be 'ramifications' over its decision to sack some 800 seafarers.