Taken from the Red Action FB page. Short clip on the page too.
We have longer footage that was recorded live, as it happened, by one of the Red Action members who couldn't attend herself that night. Unfortunately, it's still on a VHS tape, which we will endeavour to get transferred.
The background of the evening was that two vanloads of AFA (one from Edinburgh, the other from Glasgow) toured the constituency in Lanarkshire where the BNP had stood a candidate and expected a strong loyalist vote. We didn't find them and decided to chance our luck at the count in the Glasgow SECC.
When we arrived we were informed that we had missed the BNP's arrival by only a few minutes and that 25 of them were already in the hall. Entry was by ticket only. We decided to approach members of the SSP/Militant as they arrived to see if they had any spare tickets and to warn them that the fash were already inside. The attitude of many of those passing us ranged from dismissive to openly hostile. One scoffed that the BNP would be 'no problem' for them.
After about 5 minutes, and to his eternal credit, Alan McCombes emerged and told us that the BNP were already trying to intimidate people inside the count and he handed us a bundle of tickets that he had collected from his comrades. We marched into the count and the fash almost shit themselves at the sight of us... Scottish BNP leader Scott McLean, tried to appeal to one of the leading Celtic (CSC) lads with us, saying, "Why are you here John? We're not into violence any more..." To which he replied with the immortal words, "You're fucked then, cos we are!"
McLean later approached the Red Action organiser and tried to speak to him, he was met with the stonewall reply, "Fuck off, I dont speak to fascists..." When McLean tried to continue the conversation, another Celtic lad, Big Pete, stepped forward, punched him straight in the mouth saying, "Did you not hear what he said? We don't speak to fascists!"
BBC's Kirsty Wark, covering the Scottish vote, commented, "We've just been informed that a militant anti-fascist group has infltrated the count..."
When Asian Labour MP Mohamed Sarwar was elected it was the BNP's cue to heckle and wave flags, as soon as they did so AFA steamed them from behind, some of the SSP people also joined us at that stage. Eventually the cops took control and decided that the safest option was to get the fash out of the hall, As they were escorted out, AFA members attempted to get at them.
Kirsty Wark's comment at that point was also immortal, "And there's some of the real citizens of Glasgow showing the BNP what they really think of them..."
* The mobilisation was a joint one between Glasgow AFA and Edinburgh AFA, the two Scottish AFA branches regularly co-operated on joint actions. It included members of Red Action, the Celtic Soccer Crew, hunt sabs and anarchists
