They were so concerned about police actions and tactics on 20th March that the Lancashire Division of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) passed an emergency resolution the following week that condemned the manner in which the demonstration was managed by the Greater Manchester Chief Constable and his team as totally unacceptable.

Lancashire NUT:

urgently call on the executive Director and all the other 18 members of the Greater Manchester Police Authority(GMPA) to investigate the way that the GMP behaved in Bolton and we call on it to acknowledge the repeated tactical failings of its senior officers, which could too readily have lead to tragic consequences on several occasions.

The response from the Chief Executive of GMPA is now being challenged by Unite Against Fascism (UAF) who energetically refutes the claim in paragraph 5 of the GMPA response that the police “received positive feedback from representatives from Unite Against Fascism… about the way the policing operation was conducted”.   This statement is false says UAF  who are:

…publicly calling upon Greater Manchester Police Authority to state clearly where the supposed UAF “positive feedback” on policing of our Bolton rally came from. If GMPA cannot do this, then we must assume that they simply manufactured the claim of positive feedback deliberately in a misguided attempt to sow division and confusion amongst supporters of our united, multicultural campaign against racism and fascism.

Click here to read the full report from UAF.