While I attempted to report both sides fairly and with due impartiality, it was made somewhat difficult by the tense situation that I found myself in. Police were, quite rightly, enforcing a strict and controlled operation while UKIP members were relaying messages which caused grave hostility.

To say tensions were running high would be an understatement. When I first arrived at the protest, between a UKIP rally and counter protesters, I was able to move freely between the imposing line of police officers, which formed a 25-metre-wide wall to stop protesters and counter protesters from being at each other's throats.

Yet as more and more UKIP activists showed up to the 'gathering', there seemed to be a shift in the policing approach that meant media were no longer allowed to move freely between the lines, or so I thought.

It turns out that a person in the vicinity of the UKIP gathering had been relaying information to the police to state they were not going to engage with mainstream media, and I was then told it "would be dangerous for me" to be on that side of the protest.

This ethos was about as robust as a chocolate teapot. At the end of a somewhat confusing march around the city centre, I managed to get a word in with the man himself—UKIP leader Nick Tenconi—all in the name of good journalistic practice and impartiality.

I had already spoken to counter protestors and trade unionists about their stance and motives - and this latest approach was a nerve-racking one. Just two hours before a police officer had a quiet word........

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