Huge police presence as protesters and counter-protesters gather ahead of Raise the Colours Sheffield march
Major police presence ahead of march and protests
This is the scene in Sheffield city centre this afternoon, ahead of a march by the right wing group Raise the Colours.
Dozens of police officers can be seen in the city centre around Fargate, the Peace Gardens and Tudor Square, with left-wing protesters carrying out counter-protests at Tudor Square.
A number of counter-protesters had also gathered at the top of Fargate. Police could be seen appearing to arrest a man just outside Sheffield Town Hall earlier, but it is not known which protest he was involved in.
Police horses were also in place on Pinstone Street, between the Fargate counter protesters, and the Raise the Colours protest.
Counter protesters made speeches in Tudor Square, and chanted that immigrants were welcome.
Labour and Green members of Sheffield Council also spoke at the counter-protest.
Green Coun Alexi Dimond said the size of the gathering there showed Sheffield was a city of sanctuary.
He also criticised South Yorkshire Police for agreeing to facilitate what he described as a far-right demonstration targeting vulnerable people where they lived, saying that the protest should not be allowed near a migrant hotel.
Explaining the horrors of refugees fleeing war zones, Labour Councillor Safiya Saeed, a former Sheffield mayor, said some of her family had bullet wounds when they came to Sheffield to flee war. She said she and her family had suffered racism, including people refusing to sit next to them on buses.
Protesters from Raise the Colours had begun to gather in the Winter Garden, so far in smaller number than the scores of counter-protesters in Tudor Square.
They carried union flags, and flags bearing the St George Cross. They shouted: Whose streets? Our streets.”
People were going about their every day business away from the protesters and counter-protesters, although some parents could be heard explaining the children they would not be staying in town for long.