Saturday saw an excellent mobilisation in Manchester that far outnumbered an attempted gathering of fascists, reports Anna Rapotu

It was a victorious day in Manchester on Saturday where over 200 anti-fascists gathered in a counter-protest to see off the far-right leader of Ukip (apparently that’s still a thing), Nick Tenconi. Only ten of them had managed to congregate in a corner of Piccadilly Gardens by the mid-afternoon, while the Unity Rally, called by Manchester Stand Up to Racism, held the square.

We heard speeches from Greater Manchester Stop the War, trade unions, migrant organisations, Jewish Voice for Labour, and others. The rally was joined by many coming from the Palestine demo, along with the sounds of the Manchester drummers for Palestine, keeping spirits high.

The small far-right gathering left for St Peter’s Square, where they managed to scrounge up about fifty in total, some carrying wooden crosses, for some reason, as well as a banner calling for mass deportations. Despite a ridiculous amount of heavy-handed GM police trying to block and kettle the counter-protesters to prevent us from reaching the fascists, who they were allowing to march, we were too numerous.

The fascists were sent packing with the message that we will not tolerate racists on the streets of Manchester. The fight against the far right very much continues, the threat of which was made far too real last year. Decades of anti-migrant rhetoric, paired with decades of austerity have pushed many into the far-right populism of Reform and the easy finger pointing and othering it offers as reasons for their poverty and diminishing services.

We must continue to make the links between austerity, arms spending, inequality, privatisation of public services, the ever increasing cost of living, climate breakdown, imperialism and war, and we must fight back.