UK student protests turn into heavy riots, as tuition hike passes in Parliament

9/12/2010 - The UK student protests reached a new climax Thursday with heavy riots around Westminster, as the House of Commons approved plans to increase tution fees for students in England to up to £9,000 per year. The move was carried by 323 votes to 302, which means that the Conservative-Liberal coalition government's notional majority narrowed of 84 to 21. Although all 57 Lib Dem MPs said before the election that they would oppose any rise in tuition fees, 28 of them voted for the hike, while even 6 Tory backbenchers voted no.

The day had begun with new demonstrations and sit-ins throughout Britain followings weeks of nationwide protests, university occupations and direct actions lobbying or targeting MPs. Maybe 25.000 students were marching through central London, repeatedly attempting to break through police lines or rushing down side streets, determined to reach parliament. Although it was announced that protesters would not be allowed into Parliament Square, students surged in, getting close to the House of Commons, while the police began to “kettle” people then tore into them. They started with baton charges then galloped in on horseback (aerial view video), whereby one rider fell from his horse (Video from Sky News)

A live protest map also here

Subsequently students launched themselves at police lines and barriers, and tore down the fencing around the grass in Parliament Square (Video), forcing the police to retreat behind barricades as the Parliament Square and the surrounding streets were finally occupied (see Video roundup , Video). A group of around 150 students, furious at being stopped from joining the protest outside parliament, occupied the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square, others set off to march through central London .

When the Commons' vote finally became known in the early evening, some protesters tried to ram their way through the doors of the Treasury, chanting "One solution, revolution", and started using concrete blocks and metal poles to smash windows of the building on Great George Street while being contained inside the square. Others attacked the Supreme Court or vandalized statues in Westminster Square, including one of Winston Churchill.

Three quarter hours before the attack on the Supreme Court, around 7:15 p.m., Prince Charles and Camilla entered the scene, as if the royal protocol wished to reserve them also a little role in this riot theatre: Their limousine, a 1977 Rolls Royce Phantom VI, was attacked by protesters in Regent Street as they travelled to London Palladium for a Royal Variety Performance. A rear window was smashed and paint bombs were hurled at the vintage car, but the princely couple stayed unharmed (Video, Amateur footage & witnesses). The Duchess of Cornwall tried to brave the situation even with historic sense of mind: “There’s a first time for everything,” she told reporters before the couple drove off in an armored police truck after the performance.

At nearly the same time, around 7:25 p.m, a group of up to 1,000 students were marching down Oxford Street, chanting "General strike now". A branch of Topshop, owned by billionaire Philip Green, who has been targeted for not paying taxes on company dividends in the United Kingdom, was savaged on the way, while bins were overturned and police were attacked on Oxford Street, causing panic among shoppers.

Altogether some 38 protesters and 10 officers have been injured according to official reports. Six officers required hospital treatment and four suffered minor injuries. So far 20 people have been arrested: nine for violent disorder, two for arson, two for assault on police, two for criminal damage, one for being drunk and disorderly and four for burglary.

Meanwhile, a law professor, Ian Grigg-Spall, said he lodged a legal complaint calling for Lib Dem leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg to be prosecuted for fraud over the controversial tuition fees under Section 2 of the Fraud Act.

Students lay siege to House of Commons (Socialist Worker Online, UK, with links, timeline etc.)

Britain: the student revolt (In Defense of Marxism, large roundup)

For whom the fee tolls - The Debt Generation fights back, as Parliament votes on fees (SchNEWS, UK, compact story of events)

Police brutally attack protesters as UK parliament backs university fees hike (World Socialist Web Site)

Da Londra: L'avanguardia balla il dubstep (Mercato Occupato, Bari, Italy)

Royal car attacked in protest after MPs' fee vote (BBC, roundup with video)

Tuition fees: government wins narrow victory as protests continue (The Guardian)

Protesters Attack Car Carrying Prince Charles (New York Times)

police/media lies - student protest pics & report (Indymedia London)

London tuition fee protest (Boston Globe, The Big Picture, big-formated photos)

Students smash the police in London (Anorak.co.uk, 66 photos)

Protesters attack royal couple yes! and yes! British students riot in London (Act for Freedom Now, photos)

Prince Charles and Camilla caught up in tuition fees protest violence (Liverpool Daily Post, UK)

Sarah Teather votes for tuition fee hike (Willesden & Brent Times)

UK backs tuition hike amid furore (Al Jazeera)

Cameron condena la violencia de "una minoría" en las protestas estudiantiles (El País, Spain)

Londres: manifestations violentes sur fond de débat parlementaire (Agence France Presse)

Londra: 20mila persone assediano la Camera dei Comuni e assalto all’auto di Carlo e Camilla (La Repubblica, Italy, via Contro l'Informazione Manipulata)

Englische Uni-Reform : Wütende Studenten attackieren Limousine von Prinz Charles (Der Spiegel, Germany)

Studentenproteste: Randalierer greifen Charles und Camilla an (Focus, Germany)

"An Opposition, on coming into power, is often like a speculative merchant whose bills become due. Ministers have to make good their promises, and they find a difficulty in so doing. They have said the state of things is so-and-so, and if you give us the power we will do thus and thus. Of course, something must be done: the speculative merchant cannot forget his bills." (Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution, 1867, Chapter V)

"The House of Commons is thronged with people who get there merely for 'social purposes', as the phrase goes; that is, that they and their families may go to parties else impossible." (Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution, 1867, Chapter II).

"In all cases it must be remembered that a political combination of the lower classes, as such and for their own objects, is an evil of the first magnitude; that a permanent combination of them would make them (now that so many of them have the suffrage) supreme in the country; and that their supremacy, in the state they now are, means the supremacy of ignorance over instruction, and of numbers over knowledge. So long as they are not taught to act together, there is a chance of this being averted, and it can only be averted by the greatest wisdom and the greatest foresight of the higher classes." (Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution, Introduction to 2nd ed., 1872)

Photo No. 2: The Open Society and Its Enemies: Liberal Democrats Party Leader Nick Clegg and Vince Cable on 11th April 2010 as they put the finishing touches to the Liberal Democrats party election manifesto at Mr Clegg's Putney home.

UK: Bank occupations and school sleep-ins ahead of Commons' fee vote

8/12/2010 - Pupils at some London schools say they will sleep in school to protest against plans to triple tuition fees in England and cut university funding. At the same time, there have been several demonstrations across England and Scotland in the build-up to Thursday's Commons' vote on the controversial plans. Occupations have been continuing at about 20 universities, including Exeter and Leeds - where protestors have squatted now also a branch of Santander Bank on the campus (see Youtube video below).

In Dundee, a group of protesters broke away from the demonstration and entered the nearby Royal Bank of Scotland branch in High Street to continue their action. They blocked customers coming in and out of the bank and waved anti-capitalism banners. In London, a flash "teach-in" demonstration was held by protestors at Euston Station. Earlier, a group dressed as suffragettes demonstrated outside the constituency offices of Lib Dem minister Lynne Featherstone in north London, while the Education minister Sarah Teather, when asked by Sky News about her vote, lost stante pede all her oratorial soft skills and preferred to run away... (Video here).

Pupils stage university tuition fee rise occupations (BBC, today's roundup)

Students Stage Protests Ahead Of Fees Vote (Sky News, roundup)

Student protests – live coverage (The Guardian)

Students storm Royal Bank of Scotland in protest over fees (NEWS.Scotsman.com)

Clegg cast as panto villain as Durham students make their voices heard (The Northern Echo)

VIDEO: Falmouth students march through the streets (Falmouth People)

Clashes hit Milan's La Scala opening night - Barenboim speaks out

7/12/2010 - Protesters clashed with Italian riot police on Tuesday in front of Milan's world-famous La Scala opera house. Hours before an opera season opening performance of Richard Wagner's The Valkyrie was due to open at La Scala, students let off flares and smoke bombs as part of protests against government higher education reforms currently in parliament.

Inside La Scala, conductor Daniel Barenboim used the opportunity to lobby Italy's president, Giorgio Napolitano, who was in the audience. Turning to the stalls before the performance began, Barenboim announced that “in the names of the colleagues who play, sing, dance and work, not only here but in all theatres, I am here to tell you we are deeply worried for the future of culture in the country and in Europe."

He then read out the ninth article of the Italian constitution, which includes a promise to protect the country’s "historical and artistic heritage" as well as promoting "the development of culture and scientific and technical research."


Italy: Clashes hit Milan's La Scala opening night (ADNKronos, Italy)

Clashes mar La Scala season opener (DPA via Monsters & Critics)

7 dicembre - Prima della Scala Milano: una generazione precaria in rivolta! (MilanoX via Uniriot, Italy, background article)

Verso la sfiducia – Le rivolte non si fermano (Atenei in rivolta, Italy, also about today's actions in Bari, Catania, Roma, Torino)

Verletzte bei Protesten vor Scala-Premiere (APA via Der Standard, Austria)

Photo: Luca Bruni /AP

Generation X2

See also the commentary of Edward Fullbrook on the Real-World Economics Review Blog

Greek students protest over education reform and clash with police

Athens, December 2nd: During a "paneducational rally" students try to break through a police cordon in front of the Greek Parliament. The demonstration marched also to the British embassy in Athens, in solidarity with British students who oppose plans to increase tuition fees.

From Independent Television News (ITN), UK:

"University students across Greece took to the streets in protest for the second day running on against the government's planned education cuts.

Students said they were also acting in solidarity with British students, by taking their demonstration to the British Embassy in Athens.

Greek students fear the education reform will lead to cost cuts in education and new tuition fees. Police arrested several students after clashes broke out and at least one student was injured.

Police used tear gas on the students after they charged officers in an attempt to break a police cordon in front of parliament.

This was the third protest in the last few weeks as the Education Ministry discusses reforms in the system, to be announced in the next few months.The government's planned education reforms include shrinking and merging public colleges and universities and reducing the teaching workforce.The reforms come as the government has implemented general economic measures to reign in spending, cut costs, and increase revenues to reduce their debt. Some of the measures, including wage cuts and lay-offs, have angered workers. Protests have died down since the beginning of the year but various labour groups continue to keep up the momentum."

See also

photos on Indymedia Athens: protest march - police brutality - mural slogans

Greece: Clashes at student rally (Associated Press)

Greek police clash with students at British embassy (Reuters)

Che fare ? What is to be Done ?

Walk out of school and college. Take action in workplaces. Lay siege to parliament.

If everyone gets behind the student revolt then this government can be beaten over the rise in university tuition fees to £9,000 a year. School, college and university students are on the streets, millions of others support them, and government ministers are in a spin.

Liberal Democrat ministers were this week debating whether or not to vote for the policy they had shaped in the cabinet! If the fees are beaten then it will make it much easier to fight other attacks such as the abolition of the Education Maintenance Allowance that hundreds of thousands of young people rely on.

And it will boost all of us in the battle against this vicious Tory-Lib Dem coalition.

The central date for us all is the day when the fees are voted on by MPs in parliament.

That is scheduled to take place at some time before Christmas. On that day, everyone—student, worker, pensioner, unemployed—should be part of the movement.

Protest, lay siege to Parliament, send a delegation from work to the demonstration, walkout if you can.

Trade union leaders must back the calls for action, as the UCU lecturers’ union already has. The Tories and the lickspittle Liberals are out to wreck our lives. Let’s sink them.

Socialist Worker Online, UK

The claims of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and other middle class “left” organisations that building up "direct action" and merely getting larger numbers onto the streets is an adequate strategy for defeating the cuts must be rejected.

Placing all the emphasis on greater protest activity by the students is the means by which the SWP cynically attempts to cover up the complicity of the Labour and trade union bureaucracy with the imposition of the cuts and divert students away from a political struggle against those elements. Especially under conditions in which the state is preparing more severe repression against protests, this would mean leaving the students to fight alone, to be picked off by the police and worn down.

Young people cannot look to disaffected Liberals, the Labour Party or the trade unions to fight back against the efforts to impose the global economic crisis on the backs of working people. They are not a solution to the problem, they are part of it.

Students and youth must make a conscious political turn towards the working class. This is the opposite of the orientation to the Trades Union Congress proposed by the SWP and others. It means linking up with all sections of workers facing cuts in their jobs, wages and living standards through the building of rank-and-file committees in a rebellion against the trade unions. The fight against austerity must be based in a struggle against the capitalist profit system, for the bringing down of the coalition government and for a workers’ government based on socialist policies.

International Students for Social Equality, UK

Picture to yourselves a popular uprising.

Probably everyone will now agree that we must think of this and prepare for it. But how? Surely the Central Committee cannot appoint agents to all localities for the purpose of preparing the uprising. Even if we had a Central Committee, it could achieve absolutely nothing by such appointments under present-day Russian conditions. But a network of agents that would form in the course of establishing and distributing the common newspaper would not have to “sit about and wait” for the call for an uprising, but could carry on the regular activity that would guarantee the highest probability of success in the event of an uprising. Such activity would strengthen our contacts with the broadest strata of the working masses and with all social strata that are discontented with the autocracy, which is of such importance for an uprising. Precisely such activity would serve to cultivate the ability to estimate correctly the general political situation and, consequently, the ability to select the proper moment for an uprising. Precisely such activity would train all local organisations to respond simultaneously to the same political questions, incidents, and events that agitate the whole of Russia and to react to such “incidents” in the most vigorous, uniform, and expedient manner possible; for an uprising is in essence the most vigorous, most uniform, and most expedient “answer” of the entire people to the government. Lastly, it is precisely such activity that would train all revolutionary organisations throughout Russia to maintain the most continuous, and at the same time the most secret, contacts with one another, thus creating real Party unity; for without such contacts it will be impossible collectively to discuss’ the plan for the uprising and to take the necessary preparatory measures on the eve, measures that must be kept in the strictest secrecy.

In a word, the “plan for an all-Russia political newspaper”, far from representing the fruits of the labour of armchair workers, infected with dogmatism and bookishness (as it seemed to those who gave but little thought to it), is the most practical plan for immediate and all-round preparation of the uprising, with, at the same time, no loss of sight for a moment of the pressing day-to-day work …

Class political consciousness can be brought to the workers only from without, that is, only from outside the economic struggle, from outside the sphere of relations between workers and employers. The sphere from which alone it is possible to obtain this knowledge is the sphere of relationships of all classes and strata to the state and the government, the sphere of the interrelations between all classes.

Lenin, What is to be Done ?(1901)

London protesters come here face to face with Metropolitan Police after a new day of marching against the planned university tuition fee increases. Police said 146 demonstrators were arrested after a group of protesters refused to leave Trafalgar Square at the end of the demonstration. There were also ten arrests in Bristol. At least the British Liberal Democrats seem to have come now politically under pressure and mull abstaining in the parliamentary vote on tuition fees, while the Government in Wales decided to spare Welsh students from a rise in tuition fees. (Photo: Reuters)

See

Europeans stage anti-austerity protest (Reuters via ZCommunications.org)

Ddl Gelmini, proteste in tutta Italia La Camera approva la riforma (La Repubblica, Italy, chronology of events)

30 novembre 2010 - Diretta sms - contro il ddl, scontri e blocchi stradali, occupate decine di stazioni, la rivoltà dell'università contro il governo (Uniriot Network, Italy, chronology)

Rolling coverage of student protests on Day X2 (Socialist Worker Online, UK, chronology)

Budget cuts stir protest in Italy, UK (Wall Street Journal Europe)

Protests against tuition fees strain coalition (Reuters UK)

'Non-students to blame for trouble' (The Evening Post, Bristol, UK)

Punished for being English: Welsh students join Scots in being spared tuition fees rise (Daily Mail, UK)