Anti-racists in Glasgow have scored a huge victory against Ukip’s Nick Tenconi. 

　　Around 500 people from trade unions, community and faith organisations joined a protest called by Stand Up To Racism (SUTR) to oppose a fascist “mass deportation” rally and march that was due to take place on Saturday. 

　　Tenconi has driven Ukip further towards the far right. He has spent the week at the racist protests outside a hotel in Epping, Essex. 

　　But in Glasgow, anti-fascists outnumbered his fascists by 500 to their 200, stopping them from marching through the city centre. 

　　SUTR also condemned Glasgow City Council for permitting fascists to march. 

　　Katy Highet, who is part of the SUTR Scotland steering group, spoke to Socialist Worker about the counter-protest and how they took back the streets.

　　Police tried to obstruct us from marching against the fascists. But there were so many of us that we kept breaking through the police lines. Eventually, the police had to re-route the fascists so that they were no longer able to march through the city centre. They had their miserable rally relocated to a graveyard. 

　　“After the fascists had slinked off, we went and claimed the space where they had wanted to hold their initial rally. That was a massive victory for us.”

　　Fascists in Patriotic Alternative and Tenconi reportedly fought each other and the numbers supporting the fascist march dwindled in the face of the huge anti-fascist presence.

　　Katy added, “We humiliated them. We did this by having huge numbers of anti-fascists on the streets refusing to move or to leave until every last one of them was dispersed.”

　　“This sends an important message to anti-racists everywhere that we can and will stop fascists from marching on our streets. We’ve done it before, we did it today, we’ll do it again”.

　　The chief steward told the crowd, “We have a message for Police Scotland, we are not going home until those Nazis are off our streets. We are exercising our democratic right to protest and fight fascism. We only go home, when they go home”. 

　　Ross Hudson, Unite member and Paisley Living Rent Branch Secretary attended the counter-protest. 

　　He told Socialist Worker, “at one point the police had us surrounded with mounted police to the back of us. We had the upper hand because we had the entire trade union movement represented there, with banners from the EIS, UCU, Unison and Unite unions and Glasgow Trades Council. I think that social weight put the police on the back foot and that led to them re-routing Tenconi and his supporters.”

　　Today was a victory for anti-fascists. But the virulent racism of Nigel Farage and Reform UK continues to stoke the far right. 

　　Ross added, “There were still about 200 of them at its height, which means their side is still growing. I think a big part of that is Reform UK normalising the anti-migrant rhetoric of these groups. You can see that it’s giving confidence to the racists.”

　　The left and anti-racists must mobilise against the fascists and the racist scapegoating that fuels it. The way to break up fascists is to demoralise their base through relentless campaigning and mass confrontation. 

　　Rania Obead, co-convenor of SUTR in Edinburgh, spoke to the crowd. She said “We want to tell the fascists, this is our city. And you are not allowed to march in our city.” This is the message we need to take into every community the far right tries to mobilise.

　　We’ve seen from the violence in Epping that the fascists are getting bolder and they are hoping to grow through mobilising opposition to refugees being housed in hotels. 

　　They will continue to organise their own protests like they did in Glasgow, as well as attend other local ones, attempting to give themselves publicity and a platform to push their racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia and homophobia. 

　　But activists in Scotland have shown that anti-fascists can fight back and win. 

　　Editor: Zhong Yao  Wei Xiaoxue

　　From:https://socialistworker.co.uk/anti-racism/fascists-humiliated-in-glasgow/（2025-7-27）