Video footage shows the moment two men got in to a heated confrontation after one of them ripped down a Union Jack and St George's Cross flag the other had put up on a footbridge.

Pablo O'Hana, 31, decided to take down two flags flying from a footbridge over the A34, in Manchester, as he believed they were being put up as ‘messages of intimidation' and to make people feel scared.

The political advisor, who worked on Kamala Harris's US presidential campaign and has previously worked for the Liberal Democrats, spotted the flags on Wednesday, August 27.

Without any scissors, he decided to take the two flags off the bridge and put them in to his bag when he was confronted by someone who said they'd just put them up.

Video shows the man saying "I had the George flag and the British flag up there, you've not took them down, have you?"

Pablo then admits to the man that he did take them down, saying: "Because that's not what our country is, mate" when asked for the reason why."

The man then asks him to give the flags back – but Pablo, who has the flags in his rucksack, tells the man that he left them on top of the footbridge.

He then makes off on his bike after the man, who has started to climb up the stairs, realises the flags aren't there and starts to run back down.

Speaking afterwards, Pablo said: "I was cycling to the gym, I saw them and I thought ‘I've f***ing had enough of this."

"I'm really just sick to the back teeth of all of this s*** everywhere, I carried my bike up."

"Because I didn't know they were going to be there, I didn't have any scissors so I ripped the England flag off, because I don't really give a s*** about that."

"I'm a big Eurovision fan, I host a huge Eurovision party each year, so I thought a Union Flag could be kind of handy."

"I spent about two minutes trying to untangle the Union Flag really carefully so I didn't rip it."

"As I was walking down, either the guy had literally just put them up, or he'd put them up and was sitting in the pub watching."

"The bridge is just in front of a pub called The Gateway and there are quite a lot of glass windows, so I don't know if he was just in there watching."

"He came to confront me, I could see him as I was coming down the stairs, I was going slow as I was carrying my bike."

"I was thinking I could tell what it was going to be, because he looked really angry."
After the confrontation, Pablo sped off on his bike to get away from the man who had started to come back down the stairs.

He continued: "I stopped recording as he started running after me. He started coming back down the stairs."

"I told him the flags were up there, but they were not, they were in my bag."

"The very end of the video where I zoom in on him, he's half to three-quarters of the way up and I think then he sees the flags are not actually up there."

"At that point I thought ‘I actually can't be bothered getting in to a physical fight about this', I've done what I think is right."

"I then cycled off and he began running down the stairs. "

"I never saw him again because I was focussed on not slamming in to a car."

"He attempted to come after me but it wasn't particularly successful."

"It was quite wild."

Pablo, who has previously written an opinion piece where he claims to be an ‘unashamed patriot' and has called for the left to ‘embrace the flag', says he took down the flags as they were put up for the wrong reasons.

He added: "I was torn – I didn't want to pull down our country's flag, but I thought ‘I don't see myself as pulling down a flag right now'."

"If the World Cup was on, or Eurovision was on, or Russia had only just invaded Ukraine, then those are moments you can say ‘OK, I'm proud of my country.'"

"There were times when I was living in America, such as when Zelenskyy was in the White House and then he went to meet the Prime Minister and the king, I was tearing up I was so proud of our country."

"Living in America and seeing the way Trump treated Zelenskyy and then seeing our country do the right thing over and over again, that's a moment you go ‘I'm f***ing proud of my country', I should be allowed to fly the flag and no-one's going to accuse me of being racist."

"But right now, you're not pulling down flags – they're messages of intimidation."

"They are designed to make people feel scared, to be intimidated, to stoke fear."

"It's just a prop for that, for bullying and making people feel uncomfortable."

"As I say, I'm very proud of our country and I'll proudly fly the flag, but not when it's deliberately designed to make people uncomfortable."

"At that point I just think you can get to f***, our country's better than that, that isn't who we are."