Student protesters ignore winter freeze with mass rallies against tuition fees

• Marches in cities across UK pass off mostly peacefully
• Significant clashes with police only in London

* Matthew Taylor, Paul Lewis and Adam Gabbatt
* guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 30 November 2010 20.05 GMT


Scuffles erupt at Bristol University during today’s demonstrations Scuffles erupt at Bristol University during today’s demonstrations. Despite a handful of incidents, the protests were the most peaceful yet. Photograph: Sam Frost

The third and most peaceful mass protests against the government's higher education plans took place today as thousands of students took to the streets despite the freezing weather.

Large demonstrations took place in Brighton, Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Newcastle, Oxford and London, and there were only minor outbreaks of disorder with about two dozen arrests across the country.

Students got on to rooftops, stormed their way into council buildings, and stopped traffic in dozens of town centres, many saying they hoped the display of feeling would reverberate in Westminster.

The only significant clashes with police took place in London, where the Met tried to forcefully clear streets around Trafalgar Square at nightfall. Windows were smashed and missiles thrown at police, who charged at protesters with batons.

Earlier there had been chaotic scenes in the capital when 4,000 students marching toward parliament tried to evade what they believed were attempts by police to "kettle" them in the bleak weather.

The demonstrators responded by dispersing across the city, in separate marches leading police in cat and mouse chases. One "feeder" march headed into the City, while others meandered past bemused onlookers at Oxford Circus and Hyde Park Corner, and near Buckingham Palace, stopping traffic on route.

"This is truly one of the most bizarre demonstrations I have been on," said Michael Chessum, 21, as he jogged up Regent Street with a group of riot police in tow. "It has been a shambolic policing operation because we had agreed with them beforehand that we would march along Whitehall - but the spirit and determination of the students to march and get their point across has been pretty impressive."

The Met denied it had intended to kettle protesters, despite evidence of metal barriers and rows of officers waiting along Whitehall. It blamed the confusion on protesters, who, the force said, had departed on their march at an earlier time than agreed. "We made sure we had a flexible plan and sufficient resources to enable people to come back to Trafalgar Square where the protest was due to be held," said Chief Inspector Jane Connors. "That is what we did, moving around London, encouraging people to come back and meet together. We wanted to minimise disruption."

The mood was more harmonious elsewhere in the country, although in Brighton about 600 protesters marched through the city and then tried to force their way into Hove town hall. About 100 people managed to scale the roof of a car park and threw missiles, according to police, but there were no arrests. Students also scaled a roof in Liverpool, where there were two arrests.

In Newcastle, students occupying a university building marched through the city centre in a peaceful event. Northumbria police said in a statement they had "nothing but praise" for the campaigners. "There were no arrests and no reports of any trouble of any kind," the force said.

Ten people were arrested in Bristol when about 1,000 protesters lit flares and marched through the city centre. The M32 was closed when it seemed that the march might go towards the motorway.

In Birmingham, about 40 protesters stormed into a council hall building, prompting a standoff with security and police. There were similar scenes in Leeds, where about 40 students occupied a university building, and in Oxford, where students stormed the county council offices.

Video footage showed protesters entering the Oxford building and walking through corridors before being ejected by police. The Conservative leader of the local authority, Keith Mitchell, said via a tweet: "County Hall invaded by an ugly, badly-dressed student rabble. God help us if this is our future."

Greater Manchester police said there were five arrests in the city, but that only a "loose cordon" of officers was placed around hundreds of demonstrators who had gathered in the city centre.

About 400 students also walked peacefully through Cambridge, and, in Edinburgh, 300 protesters marched along the Royal Mile in the city and gathered at a rally outside the Scottish parliament. There was also an impromptu sit-in at Queens University, Belfast, and at the Trent building on Nottingham University's campus.

The scale and reach of this month's student protests have shocked the authorities, who fear that mobilisation against government's austerity cuts could spread. Riot police were called to Lewisham town hall on Monday night when 100 protesters in the London borough tried to force their way into a meeting where councillors were voting to cut the budget by £60m. Police said arrests were made and several officers received minor injuries. The same protest groups are expected to focus on a council meeting in Camden, north London, tomorrow.

Many of the protests were organised by students who were occupying up to 32 university buildings across Britain. They have taken place largely independently of the National Union of Students. Threatened with a no-confidence vote, the NUS president, Aaron Porter, recently apologised for the union's "spineless" caution toward student activism and promised more support.


Student protesters ignore winter freeze with mass rallies against tuition fees | Education | The Guardian


---

Threatened with a no-confidence vote, the NUS president, Aaron Porter, recently apologised for the union's "spineless" caution toward student activism and promised more support.

Hahaha. Like clockwork.

Nevertheless, the cautious theoreticians are angry at these madmen, they excommunicate them, they anathematize them. But the madmen win sympathy, the mass of the people secretly applaud their courage, and they find imitators. In proportion as the pioneers go to fill the jails and the penal colonies, others continue their work; acts of illegal protest, of revolt, of vengeance, multiply.

Indifference from this point on is impossible. Those who at the beginning never so much as asked what the "madmen" wanted, are compelled to think about them, to discuss their ideas, to take sides for or against.

The Spirit of Revolt by Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921)

These student protests will grow with or without Aaron Porter's support

The NUS leader's belated support for the university occupations reveals someone uneasy with radical direct action


o Rowan Rheingans
o guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 30 November 2010 13.06 GMT



An average day in the occupation at Newcastle University begins early. First on the agenda of each general meeting are a selection of messages of solidarity. We continue to be inundated with messages from local activists, teachers, parents, school students and academics, offering practical support and sharing advice from previous actions.

It was in such a meeting that we heard news of NUS president Aaron Porter's statement of support for the anti-cuts occupations that are ongoing in many of the country's universities and look likely to grow. A ripple of polite applause crept across our lecture theatre but in general the mood was indifferent. Compared with the times we've received emails from prominent political activists, promises of "dinner for all" from our lecturers or words of congratulations from local people, it didn't seem to matter that much.

It is our occupation's atmosphere of radical, creative discussion and collective action that might explain why Porter's apology for "dithering" in recent weeks fell a little flat. On the second National Day of Action today, and after six nights, our occupation is stronger than ever. Maintaining easy access in and out of the building has meant our space has been available for local sixth form and college students as well, providing a supportive environment for lecturers to have meetings about the cuts. We have organised our own daily educational programme, open to the public, as well as helping to allow scheduled classes to continue in our occupied space. Calls from local and national press are now almost as frequent as donations of food and blankets.

Another reason we were unmoved by Porter's statement was perhaps because his "U-turn" is a reflection of what we have experienced locally with our student representatives. They too have made new promises to support anti-cuts campaigns but we have learned through six days of successful occupation that this support, though welcome, is not vital. Like our sabbatical officers, Aaron Porter should support students engaged in peaceful direct action to defend their education. It remains to be seen how his statements to this effect will impact on those in the student movement he labels "unrepresentative" because they venture beyond the NUS blueprint for fighting cuts.

The action of occupying a university is not merely to challenge university managements to come out against cuts, nor is it only to put pressure on the coalition to stop talking misleadingly about "togetherness" when it comes to education reforms. Occupations are not just a political tactic that the NUS supports or does not. To occupy a university space is to fundamentally question what education is for, how teaching and learning is organised, whose decisions are acted upon and how those decisions are made. We are challenging relationships taken for granted and stimulating ideas for different ways of organising society.

Aaron Porter should join this collective effort to re-imagine education. But this must mean he accepts what will sometimes be a muddled conversation about the way we organise and protest: we are learning a lot of this as we go along. We have not forgotten Porter's initial statements following the protests at Millbank. His condemning of "violence", without distinguishing between people and windows, felt like a lazy dismissal of radicalism full stop. The student movement needs a fighting union which can be relied upon to support and educate its members about taking all actions against cuts. Porter's recent statements reflect his response to the strength of the growing grassroots student movement. This is an encouraging reflection of our collective political potential to suggest alternatives for education and necessarily perhaps for student representation.

This movement is bigger than Aaron Porter. It is bigger than the universities and bigger than the project of an occupied lecture theatre. In the north-east, the impetus for actions so far has come primarily from school and college students. This energy is in turn spreading across the wider community. This fightback will continue with or without Aaron Porter's support. It is simply too serious now to dwell for any length of time on what could be more empty promises. We are busy organising, occupying and reimagining what we want education to be. In short, we have got more pressing things to do.

These student protests will grow with or without Aaron Porter's support | Rowan Rheingans | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk