After Saturday’s Britain First march through Manchester, the one that, as Searchlight reported yesterday, was repeatedly stalled, split, and ultimately overshadowed by a far more organised anti‑fascist mobilisation, Paul Golding has finally emerged from his hotel room to deliver his verdict.
And, in a twist that shocked absolutely nobody, he has concluded that the real villains of the day were not the thousands of Mancunians who turned out to oppose him, but the police officers who apparently conspired to ruin his parade.
‘Police sabotage’
Golding, who has been “doing this 26 years”, insists in a video on X that he has never witnessed such “extreme police sabotage”.
His first outrage: officers wouldn’t let his two vans of flags drive straight through a cordon.
Thousands of supporters, he claims, were left wondering “Where’s Paul? Where’s Ashley?” a question that, if true, must have been answered fairly quickly when they realised the pair were stuck behind a barrier like everyone else.
One officer, outrageously, even told him to “jog on”, which Golding recounts with a degree of incredulity it is truly hard to take seriously.
Labyrinthine odyssey
Then came the march itself. The agreed route was, on Golding’s account , transformed into a labyrinthine odyssey reminiscent of “the long march through China – if you know anything about history.”
Er, yes, of course.
The police, he insists, were trying to funnel Britain First directly into counter‑protests.
‘Socialist lunatics’
First into the SUTR rally (“Jeremy Corbyn and 1,000 left-wing counter-protesters”) in Piccadilly Gardens , then into Manchester’s Gay Village (“which is where the trans, communist, socialist lunatics are meeting. I’m talking like 1,000 people…not a pleasant place for people like us”).
Both redirections were ordered, he claims both apparently chosen because the police were desperate to engineer a riot.
What actually happened, as anyone present could see and as we reported yesterday, was far simpler: anti‑fascists turned out in huge numbers, occupied key points, and forced the police to reroute the march.
Out-organised
Golding’s “thousands and thousands” of patriots were, in reality, out-thought, out‑organised and outnumbered. But admitting that would require acknowledging that Manchester didn’t want him there.
By the time he reached Castlefield Bowl, he claims half his supporters had been “carved off” by police.
A more honest assessment might note that many simply peeled away once it became clear the day wasn’t going to deliver the triumphant spectacle Britain First had promised.
Or that they hadn’t been there in the first place.
Confiscated
Still, Golding insists the march was “massive, spectacular, brilliant”, and that the police only sabotaged it because they fear Britain First’s unstoppable momentum.
It is worth remembering, of course, that Golding has had the hump with Manchester police ever since they confiscated his Britain First ‘battle bus’ last year, forcing him to spend thousands recovering it at auction.
He has now vowed to return to Manchester in April, presumably hoping that next time the police will stop the anti‑fascists from ruining his fun.
If only he could accept the obvious: it wasn’t sabotage. It was Manchester.
And Manchester wasn’t having him.
