Scotland's Communists stand with the Garvaghy Road

CPB challenges Police Scotland’s decision to send 200 officers to protect an Orange march in Portadown

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Banned as a provocation in 1998, the Drumcree Orange march returned this year after the Parades Commission judged it “low risk,” despite a legal challenge and a three-day standoff.

Paying tribute to the Garvaghy Road community, the Scottish Committee of the Communist Party of Britain compared their efforts to the “Communists, Jews, and Irish dockworkers, who 90 years ago, at the battle of Cable Street declared ‘no compromise — they shall not pass’.”

Challenging Police Scotland and the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the committee added: “If they judged the threat of violence to be low, what was the need to draft 200 officers from an already stretched police force, and why has the Scottish government been silent?”

A Police Scotland spokesperson said: “Scotland has benefited from mutual aid in the past and will do so again in future, therefore it is entirely appropriate that we support other forces if asked to do so.”

The Scottish government insisted it was an “operational matter.”

Northern Ireland / 28 September 2026 The days of unionist ‘supremacy’ are gone, says Northern Ireland's First Minister 28 September 2026 Editorial / 27 September 2026 Why the Garvaghy Road crisis matters for both Britain and Ireland 27 September 2026 ‘Reviving the Garvaghy Road route for an Orange Order parade after 28 years, when it was a focal point of lethal violence back in the 1990s, looks like a bid to take us backwards too’