Seven arrested as Bonfire Night mobs burn police van in Glasgow
Seven people were arrested after a night of fireworks attacks on emergency crews across Scotland, in which a police van was set alight in Greenside Street, Provanmill, and a police officer and an ambulance worker were hurt as they answered a call about an injured man. A 16-year-old boy was arrested over the burning vehicle. Fire crews were attacked in Knightswood, Castlemilk, Cumnock, Larkhall and Blackridge, and fireworks were thrown at the public in Clydebank and at police in Edinburgh.
Police Scotland called the Halloween-to-Bonfire Night operation, codenamed Amberlight, “one of the most complex and demanding deployments in recent memory”, with the largest number of officers mobilised since Donald Trump’s visit last year and reinforcements drawn from forces as far away as Avon and Somerset, Hampshire, Hertfordshire and south Wales. The force logged 1,024 fireworks-related calls between 31 October and 5 November, up from 833 in 2025, though Chief Superintendent David Robertson said fewer incidents needed specialist public-order units: “Police officers, ambulance staff and firefighters are there to protect communities — not be the target of violence.” Twenty-one dispersal orders were issued in Edinburgh and thirteen in Glasgow; nobody was charged with breaching the firework control zones. In Dundee’s Kirkton area a public-order unit was deployed after more than 100 young people set a fire in the road. The education secretary, Mairi McAllan, told Radio Scotland the violence was “completely unacceptable” while insisting “the vast majority of displays went ahead without any problems”. The scenes will feed the argument in Holyrood over whether the control zones and the 2022 fireworks licensing law are being enforced, and whether a wider sales ban is needed.