Last Sunday, November 5, crowds gathered on George Square in response to a planned demonstration by the far-right group Last Line Resistance.

Demonstrators carried flags and chanted: ‘Whose streets? Our streets. Whose city? Our city.’ And: ‘If you’re Nazi and you know it run away.’

‘They don’t deserve a platform,’ said Nina, one activist, carrying a banner inscribed with the words ‘Every nation, every gender, put a Nazi in a blender.’ She added that ‘four or five’ far-right demonstrators were seen in the very beginning.

Last Line Resistance were not present.

The counter-demonstration was organised by Anti-Capitalist Queers together with Edinburgh Antifa.

‘We organise against fascists and Nazis,’ said Emrys, from the Anti-Capitalist Queers.

Last Line Resistance activist John (he declined to give his real name) explained the reason for their demonstration: ‘We are campaigning for a White Scotland, a Scotland Free from the capitalist Westminster.

The far-right demonstrator continued that his fellow supporters are ‘young smart intellectual men’ and not ‘thugs.’

‘We fully expect them to come out with statements like that,’ Emrys said in response to John’s statement and added, ‘When it comes to media they like to use gaslighting.’

Legal observers also attended the demonstration. They were handing out ‘bust cards’ containing people’s rights when stopped, detained or arrested by the police.

Ahead of the demonstration, Emrys accused the far-right of ‘causing a lot of trouble,’ while John claimed that ‘reds threaten them.’

Anti-Capitalist Queers was set up in the wake of the arrests of five protesters during the annual Pride Glasgow in August this year. They organised demonstrations in response to the police’s actions.

John distanced Last Line Resistance from National Action and Scottish Dawn – two neo-Nazi groups which have been banned under the UK’s anti-terror laws.

By Dimitur Stefanov