After another successful day of action yesterday, we look at what lies next for the growing movement against the UK government's austerity measures of cuts to services and rising fees.
Yesterday showed continued energy for the fight against austerity as protesters successfully evaded deployments of riot police and horses in towns and cities across the UK, and were joined by similar protests on a large scale in Italy.
In a trend that started during the 24th November, university students were in some cases outnumbered by students from schools and colleges, who are getting hit directly by both the cuts to EMA and tuition fee increases. The character of the protests changed quite significantly from previous days of action, with many areas largely abandoning any attempt to hold an A-B march and rally (often impossible to hold due to aggressive policing anyway), opting instead for highly mobile, smaller groups; evading police lines, blocking traffic, occupying university, local government and shop building. There were also no set piece confrontations with the police - at least none that suited the needs of lazy rolling news TV, with reporters often pictured 'embedded' amongst hundreds of riot police standing around in empty streets, while the protests were occurring across town.
At time of writing there are at least 15 occupations of universities across the UK. - We'll just link to the list maintained by the Edinburgh occupation rather than duplicate it here. Slade School of Art, the University of Nottingham, University College Falmouth and Kings College London were all newly occupied yesterday. Queens in Belfast was occupied briefly (but we understand the space was unheated). There have also been occupations of Birmingham Council House by a large group made up mainly of school students (not sure if this is still ongoing?), Oxfordshire County Hall, and several banks and vodaphone stores. Lewisham town hall was invaded by dozens of protesters (supported by several hundred outside) on Monday during a meeting agreeing millions of pounds of cuts to council services, with similar actions expected today in Camden.
As the weather gets colder the appetite for boring marches and the prospect of spending hours standing around kettled will dim even further (although perhaps not for playing tag and snowball fights), so what's coming up next?
- Some universities are entering their second week of occupation, and being joined by fresh ones every couple of days. These occupations have in some cases successfully opened their doors to school students and the wider community, and nearly all are maintaining active contact with the outside world via frequently updated blogs and twitter accounts. Will we see occupations of schools, sixth form colleges, more local council buildings and high profile landmarks follow this?
- The 'Workers and Students Movement' on Facebook put out a callout for events on 4th and 5th December. Events are being advertised in Atherton, Birmingham, Dewsbury, Lancaster, Leicester, Manchester, Norwich, Sunderland and Wigan. While there is no official march planned in London, there is already a March on Parliament for a Zero Carbon Britain which had been booked previously, and a protest planned against the London Lib Dem conference.
- This all coincides with theUK Uncut a 'National Day of Action Against Tax Avoiders', organised for the 4th December. Previous targets of these protests have included Vodaphone (with an estimated £7bn in avoided tax) and Top Shop, whose owner Philip Green is both an adviser to the government on waste cutting, and has been personally highlighted for hundreds of millions of pounds in tax avoidance.
- On Sunday 5th there are actions planned in Bristol, Colchester, Newcastle and Nottingham.
- In many cases these protests are being called by local anti-cuts groups as opposed to student groups, this should give the lie to the media's (not to mention the NUS) constant portrayal of these protests as only about tuition fees.
- New National Days of Action have been called by the National Campaign Against Feeds and Cuts for the 9th and 11th December (that page is currently a bit confused about dates, we understand the NCAFC is working on it).
- the NUS and UCU, conscious that they've been entirely ignored over the past few weeks, have tried to get back in on the action by announcing a march on the day fee increases are debated in parliament, alongside 'mass lobbying' of MPs (surely they're not suggesting mass occupations of constiuency offices are they?), and a candlelight vigil.
The occupations, rolling and weekend actions are extremely important if what has so far largely been a movement led by students can maintain momentum and expand to incorporate workers, benefits claimaints and pensioners - all of whom are going to be deeply affected by the cuts but have not yet converted this anger into concrete activity on a wide scale. After all "We're all in this together".
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http://www.aclandburghley.camden.sch.uk/
Looks like another school is going to be occupied. The school is closing down in response.
EDIT: And in doing so it looks like they've put paid to the occupation. Boo.
According to one twitter post, RMT members are actually going to be present at the student march:
"RMT members will assemble outside Unity House tomorrow @ 11 and will march to the student demo in #solidarity"
I'll see if some more confirmation appears.
"RT @camdensitin: Just heard that both Stoke Newington School and acland burghley school are both in occupation #demo2010 #solidarity"
This message is appearing on Twitter, apparently coming from the Camden occupation.
Yeah that evening standard article is funny. According to them the Wombles are behind these protests.
Just saw this on facebook - it is apparently Euston station. Anyone know about it?
https://london.indymedia.org.uk/articles/6393
It was the culmination of the UCL's organised 'Teach-Out': a series of public lectures around London (including some on tube trains). It culminated in a massive lecture given in Euston Station (in the pic).
Also, been looking into the Exeter occupation. I was kind of expecting it to be organised by the Socialist Students (as they were the only vaguely left student group around, the Labour Students having collapsed through lack of members) - but it seems like a really diverse, yet solid bunch. Democratic, consensus decision making, everything. Seems to be getting support from some of my friends who aren't renowned for being political too.
Fifty of them are staying overnight, and the initial occupiers apparently contained members of the public, too.
thanks for the info - I was hoping it was the first of a series of blockades
Interview with students from Camden School for Girls on Channel 4 News report
BBC report on school occupations - though I caught a bit of the news on BBC earlier on and it seemed to be in full propaganda mode with none of this mentioned and an interview with a Conservative student explaining why rises in tuition fees were a good idea.
Local press report from Camden
And from the Guardian live coverage...
Photo
Well it was announced in the Twitterverse with the words: 'Shut down London has begun'... so even if it wasn't a blockade, it seems as though the idea is doing the rounds, at least.
I like the fact that the evening standard has accused Anarchists of agitating for london to be "Shut Down" even tho this phrase is being used by just about everybody on the web including the NCAFC facebook event page.
Live blog of the days events
Glasgow Uni occupied-
"In occupation in the Gilmorehill Theatre, bottom of Uni Avenue since 1pm.
About 100 of us are occupaying 230 capacity room, with numbers increased since freedom of access was granted at 3pm. There are students and staff from Glasgow Uni, Strathclyde, and the Art School.
It's nice and warm so COME ALONG IF YOU CAN!"
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=136567579732280&index=1#!/pages/Glasgow-Uni-Occupied/133691460021139
Kent University has been occupied, around thirty students are planning to stay the night. The university's senate building was occupied after a student union assembly, I've been told by a student at the occupation that the uni security are attempting to lock the occupiers in (even though that would leave them with no exit in the event of a fire), the students are going to try and stop this from happening.
More info soon.
On the Exeter Occupation facebook page, the Deputy Secretary of the Devon NUT messaged the occupiers looking to see if they would be willing to send representatives to speak at their general committee meeting. They say it will be on tomorrow morning's agenda.
Nice to see some of the unions looking to make links, even if only small ones.
Also, a nicely modernised reference to '68 on Twitter:
'Please leave the NUS as clean on leaving it as you would like to find it on entering'.
Camden School for Girls occupier vs. Lib Dem MP Norman Lamb on Channel 4 News (scroll to bottom of page for video)
lincoln uni has been occupied
London Metropolitan which was occupied last Friday (I think)
-Students have taken over the Finance Office, the admin workers having to relocate, and today the popular beat combo 'Albama3' andothers played in front of it (For NME streetcred ratings?)
Video - student protesters plead with police to send medic to injured woman
Edit: video is from last week, story here
It seems that the occupiers at Bath Spa were feeling a little down earlier (I think being one of the smaller occupations without much coverage and thus less support). They made a call out and the other occupations (as well as other random people online) swung into action. A lot of the occupations (such as Exeter) spoke to them on skype - for no other reason than they needed cheering up and a little support. The Bath Spa occupiers are now happy and preparing for London tomorrow.
'Solidarity' is a word being bandied around a lot at the moment, but it's one of the most genuinely moving things I've seen from this new student movement.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/8190379/National-Union-of-Students-secretly-urged-Government-to-make-deep-cuts-in-student-grants.html
Telegraph is clearly not paying attention if they think the NUS is doing anything 'vocal'.
No real surprises there, but that's pretty ugly.
fucking minging
.
There's an anarchist reading group at Exeter, who are involved as is the SP, but as far as I could see when I popped in there's no one group in charge.
The SWP / NUT turned up and were leaving just as I arrived.
Unfortunately, there wasn't much going while I was there (they were showing the debate in parliament), but one of us (ICC) was there earlier and said there was a reasonable atmosphere and discussion.
At the meeting earlier this week, I proposed that the students send delegations to local workplaces to dry and draw them into the struggle. This was clapped, but I've seen little evidence of it being taken up seriously. Little acorns ...
Call on facebook for 'March of Resistance to Education Cuts, London 20 December 2010'
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=179218858770566
No idea who, if anyone, is backing this
ALERT! Seems this is a false flag demo! Check FB page for comments!
Hull Uni occupied two hours ago - http://twitter.com/#!/HSAFC
afaik that's the first university to go into occupation since the vote was passed, that's a very, very good sign IMO.
edit: http://occupiedhull.wordpress.com/
Looks like they have open access to the occupation as well.
In light of how off the cuff and uncontrollable these Facebook events are, how can you even have a 'fake' demo? It's not like people will turn up only to realise they're marching under the banner of GET THE BLACKS OUT, is it?
Looks like water cannons will be coming if things escalate.
Günter Sare, killed by a water cannon during an anti-fascist demonstration in Frankfurt/Germany in 1985:
True, but one of the supposed organisers, Angel Versetti, is a Gert Wilders supporter, and has quotes from Mussolini on his FB page...apparently the EDL (who, as you know, have international links) have said they will show up to 'support the police'...they have also been posting links to pages to grass up 'Fascist' rioters...(Sky, Daily Fail)..They also call on everyone to 'stick together' because the 'police want to divide us' , and then talk about avoiding being kettled....Draw your own conclusions...