When the thousands of anti-racism protesters who gathered on the streets of England on Wednesday took a stand against extremism in their communities, they did so knowing more unrest was a realistic possibility.
But after a night which came to be characterised by unity, rather than the division which the counter-protesters had sought to repel, those involved said they could feel heartened by their decision to support their neighbours.
“Wednesday was a historic day,” Dr Badr Abdullah, the chair of the Al-Rahma mosque in Liverpool, said 10 days after the country was shaken by the fatal stabbing of three girls in Merseyside and the rioting that followed.
“It was a really bad day in the morning before the protest, but afterwards we came back home feeling safe. I left feeling that there are people who are willing to come together in these difficult times to say no to racism.”
He was one of the 2,000 people who congregated around Liverpool’s Saint Anne’s church, which hosts an immigration centre that had featured on a far-right “hitlist” of protest targets.
“We thought we want to go in solidarity with the rest of Liverpool and those who are against racism and division in our city,” he said.
“People from different backgrounds, different religions, different ethnicities came together and it was brilliant to be a part of them. It was really a great atmosphere, particularly after the unrest, the rumours and the hate in the last week. You can see it [the fear] on the faces of the Muslim community when you drive by, when you walk around: it was becoming a ghost town around our mosque.”
But he said the peaceful gathering had left Muslims in the community feeling hopeful, after violence and disorder in the city on Saturday.
“Things were different before the protest. It was scary. People were feeling anxious; we were worried about our houses, our families, our kids, our worshippers in the mosque, our community members.
“But after the protest – this is just my own feeling – I felt differently. I felt I had hope and optimism, and I thought ‘things are definitely getting better’. Hopefully these riots are on the decline and it is the beginning of the good days.”
On Wednesday evening, 25,000 counter-protesters gathered in areas including Bristol, Brighton, Liverpool, Sheffield and Walthamstow and Hackney in London, after police warned of unrest from more than 100 rallies led by the far right .
About 6,000 riot-trained officers were drafted in to tackle the expected rallies and an estimated 30 counter-protests, after immigration law firms and refugee centres were listed as potential targets in a far-right channel on the encrypted messaging app Telegram.
Father Peter Morgan, the parish priest of Saint Anne’s, said he had been “ecstatic” after hundreds of people formed a human shield around the immigration centre at 7pm.
“It was a party atmosphere and there weren’t any discordant notes at all. We felt that we had made a wonderful statement,” the 85-year-old said.
“The whole street was packed. You could move around – but just about, it was almost like a football crowd. We have quite a few pensioners in the parish and I suppose they were in guard mode. It only would have a taken a second and everybody would have packed in like sardines if we needed to prevent anybody from getting through.”
Maria O’Reilly, 75, who held a homemade banner reading Nans Against Nazis outside the barricaded church, added: “I think it was fantastic. We are always peaceful in the counter-protests. People just radiated towards the immigration centre and just stood by the church.”
The decades-long anti-racism campaigner added: “I did not want them people smashing up or terrorising us or anyone else. They are a despicable gang of people.”
Almost 300 miles to the south, in Brighton, more than 1,000 anti-racism demonstrators so outnumbered the few people from the far right that police surrounded them for their own protection.
Nick Hines, a Stand Up To Racism activist who works in IT, said: “It was very angry at the start, because people were anticipating the far right turning up: that’s the rumour that we’d heard. But it became apparent there was only really anything between three and eight far-right protesters. Eventually, after a couple of hours, we asked the police to just move them on and the police agreed. And then it turned into a carnival with samba bands and people drumming with a couple of DJs with decks, so it turned into a real celebratory atmosphere.”
Police officers were understood to be steeling themselves for clashes at the demonstrations on Wednesday, with gatherings anticipated in 41 of the 43 police force areas in England and Wales. But the majority of forces faced little trouble.
Police in London held a man in his 50s on suspicion of “encouraging murder” after a Labour councillor allegedly called for far-right rioters’ throats to be “cut” at the rally in Walthamstow.
But the 8,000-strong counter-demonstration outside an immigration centre in the east London neighbourhood was otherwise largely peaceful. The crowd there could be heard chanting “Whose streets? Our streets” and “Say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here”.
Aidan Taylor, 56, an NHS nurse from nearby Chingford, said: “It was quite extraordinary. It was almost a sort of party-like atmosphere rather than a protest. It felt a very positive, happy kind of vibe, really.
“You feel that, as part of the community, you want to protect these immigration advice centres, which are a real valuable resource for people.”
Penny Dale, a journalist who was also at the protest, said she hoped the counter-demonstrations had showed that communities could come together after the rioting had “overshadowed” the killing of the three young girls at a Taylor Swift-inspired dance class in Southport last Monday.
“It’s just been used as an excuse for people to lash out and show their hatred,” she said.
“There have been clearly awful episodes up and down the country, and lots of hatred and lots of violence, and so I wanted to be part of a showing that not everyone’s like that, and also to just say: ‘Look, we’re not frightened. We’re here. We’re confident. We have solidarity.’ And to show solidarity to people who are not as fortunate as me, to people who are marginalised, and to people who weren’t able to go out on the streets.”
