“Vile fascists” abuse counter-protestors conducting minute’s silence for Southport victims in Portsmouth

Simon Magorian, of Stand Up To Racism, organised the demonstration alongside colleagues at Guildhall Square this morning. He said memorials to honour the victims of the tragedy were ruined by menacing “fascists” who verbally abused himself and his colleagues - threatening them with death and violence.

He told The News: “They started assembling around and when we tried to carry out our event, they started abusing us. I was on a megaphone and saying it’s important we actually respect the children who were killed, I named them and said if we could have a one minute’s silence, and they just screamed all the way throughout.”

Protests have been sparked across the UK following the deaths of Bebe King, aged six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, aged seven, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, aged nine, following the Merseyside attack last Monday (July 29). A vigil held in the town was marred by violence, with police officers being attacked and a van being set on fire. Similar incidents have taken place today in other parts of the UK.

Demonstrators on the Guildhall steps held placards such as “Save Our Children” and “Stop Knife Crime”, while others had anti-immigration slogans such as “Stop The Boats”. Members of Youth Alliance, a group which is described as nationalist and right-wing, were holding a flag with the slogan “Save British Youth, Christ Is King and Stop Mass Immigration”.

Mr Magorian said members of Patriotic Alternative were present, which deny the existence of the Holocaust and believe in an all-white Britain, as well as members of the original Pompey 657 crew, a hooligan firm of football supporters. He added that SUTR members were subject to a torrent of verbal abuse. “They were calling us rapists, murderers, everything. It was just unbelievable,” he added. “It finally got to the point where police said to us that we weren’t safe and had to be moved as they didn’t have the numbers. There were about 10 cops on duty, which was unbelievable, considering what has been going on for the past 48 hours.”

The anti-racism activist said it was ridiculous that some officers were deployed to the Foxes Forest car park Hilsea, where an apparent demonstration would be taking place, “as it was quite clearly a decoy”. The News understands that officers waited there for over an hour, yet no one showed up. Counter-protestors had to dispersed, Mr Magorian added, as it was unsafe for them to remain. It was absolutely ridiculous. It’s incorrect to frame this as a demonstration they held. It was a very violent and bullying atmosphere. I had people coming up to me saying “are you shaking, are you shaking?

“They’re just thugs and many of them were bused in from outside of Portsmouth. I recognised some from the protest in Chichester about the ‘refugee hotel’. This was basically fascists being involved in a very nasty event. I’m absolutely appalled by some of the stuff which has been put on social media.”

Misinformation online caused many violent individuals to organise protests which quickly became riots. Claims on X, formerly known as Twitter, described a fictional asylum seeker named Ali-Al-Shakati carried out the attack a year after arriving on a migrant boat. The violence as escalated today, with officers being attacked in Leeds, Hull, Sunderland and elsewhere.

“I haven’t felt that threatened since the 1980s in London when we were confronted by Combat 18,” Mr Magorian said. “It was really really disgusting. The police should have had numbers there to protect people, and it was unacceptable what went on. The whole thing was outrageous. The language was terrible. We were called rapists and people said we wanted our women raped, and we were responsible for a soldier being stabbed. They’re just like a mob, screaming and shouting obscenities.”

The activist said SUTR have over 25 minutes of footage to back up their claims. One protestor, Joe Ward, previously told The News that there were verbal exchanges but nothing violent. Mr Magorian disagrees, stating that the actions of people who disrupted the one minute’s silence for the victims was “abhorrent”. They obviously couldn’t care less about the children who were killed,” he added. “They’re hijacking the situation, and it has been going on across the country. We were not allowed to have our protest. I’ve never been in that situation. We weren't allowed to speak.

“We were drowned out. It was abusive. It was threatening, and the police should have had more numbers to have more control. That has never happened in Portsmouth. I’ve been organising demonstrations for over 20 years, and never experienced anything like this in our city.” Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary previously told The News that “no incidents have been raised from the protest in Portsmouth this morning”.