Student details experience of Fascist protest in Town

“If it wasn’t for the police there would have been deaths”

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Yesterday, right-wing protesters descended on St. George’s Hall in protest. The Merseyside Anti-Fascism Network turned up to protest against the Fascists, and a large number of Police were present. Laura Griffin told us about her first-hand experience of the event.

A huge police presence was visible in town yesterday

“We were dropping a friend off at the train station and my brother got a text saying stuff was kicking off at Lime Street so we headed over to be nosey. For ages we couldn’t work out what was going on. There were just loads of people on the steps of St George’s hall chanting stuff that we couldn’t make out to start with.

“This lady then told us that all the “racist nazi scum” were in the corner, blocked off from the police – she said there was only about 50 of them (they weren’t in sight because the police had helmets and riot shields so they were blocking the view) – the anti-fascists were outnumbering them by like 100s – there was probably about 200 at least and some definitely weren’t interested in a so-called peaceful protest. Bananas, carrots, bags of flour, rocks, flares, eggs, bottles etc etc were being thrown – probably anything anybody could get their hands on.

“The Police presence was huge. There must’ve been about 100-150 riot police all trying to keep the two sides separate. The North West Infidels (right wingers) were standing on the pillars making the nazi salute, screaming net-chants and mostly fully masked.

The Infidels were stuck on the steps outside St George’s Hall

“The lady told me that they were trying to get them into Lime Street and on the next train out of there, which seemed an impossible task. They started moving them down the steps, and as soon as this happened all the anti-facists starting running towards where the Infidels were – before this they’d been kept apart. My brother got quite close and said there was literally members of both sides screaming at each other that they were going to kill each other and they were literally only separated by a police shield.

Anti-Fascist Protestors in Lime Street

The anti-facists were chanting “Nazi scum off our streets”. They just had to keep surrounding them moving them really slowly, first off away from Lime-Street and then back towards lime street. The police used the horses to get the anti-facists off the streets in order to herd the Infidels into the station, via the side exit. All the while the same chants and throwing of stuff was going on. At least once of twice some Infidels broke out of the pen the police had them in and my brother said all he saw was them on the floor and the anti-facists kicking them.

“So many scousers surrounding us were screaming “get these fucking racists off these streets” and a lot of the anti-facists were annoyed at the police for protecting the Infidels. The anti-facists starting chanting “if it wasn’t for them [the police] you’d be dead”. I asked this scouse guy where they’d come from and he said they were originally in Manchester but got on the train to Liverpool, which is how the anti-facists had so many numbers because the manchester anti-facists had tipped them off.

“After they’d got them into Lime Street they took them into the platforms that are only accessed via the barrier (the left hand platforms) and [the police] literally stood in numbers at the entrance so none of the anti-facists were able to get in. This caused the anti-facists to diffuse because there was no way the police were budging. The police completed an impossible task to be honest”.