A rally called by anti-immigrant activist Tommy Robinson for George Square, Glasgow drew a vociferous response from pro-immigrant and anti-genocide protesters on Saturday.
The film you are about to see shows the vitriol spewed from both sides separated by a 20-meter, no-man’s land manned by a wall of yellow-clad Glaswegian police.
For nearly three hours, invectives were hurled across the divide. Each saw the other as mortal enemies, though it was unlikely anyone knew anyone from the other side.
The pro-immigrant protesters far outnumbered Robinson’s supporters in George Square, prompting schoolyard taunts from the pro-immigrant side: “There are many, many more of us than you!”
A sea of Palestinian flags flew behind one end of the barricades and a sole Israeli flag at the other. Confusion and fear stirred up by a two-party state and mainstream media on Gaza and refugees.
An Establishment that absolves itself from disasters it routinely creates: eviscerating industrial jobs, launching wars of foreign adventure with American partners spurring waves of refugees, stoking xenophobia, engaging in the impoverishing politics of debt spawning desperate developing world migrants.
The police, who often exacerbate tension in such situations, remained neutral and gradually moved both groups off the square, though neither side wanted to be seen leaving first.
Watch the film to see how this played out in George Square.
Camera: Joe Lauria Editing: Cathy Vogan
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It’s a shame that some people conflate the issue of huge numbers of uncontrolled immigration with the genocide in Palestine.
Common sense will reveal that letting huge numbers of people into the UK, One million immigrants last year, without the infrastructure or means to support those numbers will lead to an economic disaster.
This is not about race, religion or sex this is about numbers.
I suggest the authorities take the names and addresses of everyone of the ‘pro immigration’ camp and assign these people to house, feed and support the incoming immigrants. I would support that.
What the hell…start the war and lets us be over with all of it.
The Butchers apron, Red hand of Ulster and Israeli flags on the one side tells you exactly the type of people they were. … colonialists, with all that comes with it
As past masters of colonialism, but lagging behind the USA, the UK is Israel’s biggest supporter. These days UK gov concentrates mainly on brutalising and locking up UK people, and the worst sin is to support Palestine.
What those “pro-immigrant” people understand is that anti-immigrant, pro-war, pro-genocide, and pro-austerity policies are all of the same cloth, supported by the right-wing politicians. We hear the same crap here in the good old USA about “military-age men” flooding the country, ready for the Secret Signal to come from who knows who at which time they will take over (overrun) the country, ruining back-yard barbecues, stopping sporting events, and causing chaos, murder, and general mayhem.
@Betty K : “…especially military-age men.”
Is that how you categorize men – either military age or not ?
I suppose you’re trying to plant the implication that immigrant “military age men” are necesserily aggressive and part of some conspiracy to invade the UK.
You might want to consider the fact that not all men see their ordained role in life as part of some military operation. Many of those immigrants will be fleeing wars – wars often caused, and funded, by the US, UK and other western powers.
So, you want less immigration ? A first step might be to stop doing the things that cause it in the first place.
Newcastle anti-racist rally last month : hxxps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c892v4xecZM
Like it or not, Britain has a huge problem with immigration.
Most immigrants are not women or children but young and middle age men.
It would help if the Americans and their minions didn’t wreck countries from where people then need to escape. Also if politicians stop making a political football of immigration and/or carry out social and economic engineering with it when it suits them.
Anglo-Saxons are waking up to the fact that they may be a minority in the very near future, and having benefitted by NOT being a minority and the history associated with being minority has them all scared to death. Yes, the collective West is responsible for most of the troubles in the world with their supremacy, colonial, imperialist agendas and fostering, as the CIA and deep state does, color revolutions across the global south and elsewhere. Don’t blame the immigrants, blame your governments who may want you replaced so the elite can control the world as is their intention. My belief why the elite take little action in addressing climate change except to make people fearful, is they already have a plan in place to address climate and it looks much like Gaza. In USA, cop cities and prisons are going up everywhere; and who are they for? Just think deep state surveillance and you will get your answer.
Don’t fall for not enough food as an excuse for the coming shortages. It is intentional and part of the capitalistic state to reduce human populations. They are all well versed in famine and starvation methods that Stalin taught them, among other methods, and of course have been long term plotting to bring it on and make it look like it’s natural. See RESOURCE WARS and the Economics of Scarcity with Richard D. Wolff: hxxps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uREwZ2mWt0
What these “pro immigrant” people seem to not understand is that not wanting people (especially military-age men) to flood into their country isn’t racist. And they will be singing a different tune when they are over run by them and their country is paying the “immigrants” housing, etc while their homeless live on the streets with nothing like is happening across the U.S.
Rather than target the most vulnerable, why not protest the government for displacing such huge populations (the largest since WWII) with their bombing and proxy destabilisation campaigns. I’m sure Syrians, Libyans, Iraqis and Afghans would rather have stayed at home.
Agreed.
I’m all for controlled migration for workers to pick up the slack in the economy. What we have now are tens of thousands of young, unskilled fighting age men coming over illegally in boats every 2/3 months. This is purely unsustainable.
A big majority of these illegals are from Albania where, the last time I looked, is not a war zone.
Albanian men however are disproportionately represented in our Prisons, maybe that’s something to do with the Cocaine & people trafficking trade that they have taken over.
Immigration, if it’s managed properly, is a good thing all round d. When it’s not managed properly it’s usually because the politicians have made a political football of it.