A year since Milbank

The 'storming' of Milbank last year

In just two weeks time, young people will mark the anniversary of the anti-fees protests of last year.

These protests arguably shaped the memories of last year’s ‘winter of discontent’, with images of the storming of Milbank (the Conservative Party headquarters) and placard-fuelled fires whipping up smoke in the winter chill. It was pivotal moment in opposition to the government’s higher education reforms – the tripling of tuition fees being the main headline grabber – and it arguably radicalised a generation. But a mere three months later it had all died out – and the placards were not just trampled, they were gone.

I was there on the 9th of December, in a smaller crowd than the first demonstration, but it still felt huge. This, remember, was the protest that the NUS refused to back. The feelings of betrayal stretched beyond the coalition to the union. Being a college student, I was clueless to the complexities of ‘the bureaucracy’, as some described the Aaron Porter’s NUS - inside the police kettle it wasn’t on the top of my worries list.

So, why all the reminiscing? Because, a year on from the start of the student discontent, they’re marching again. And this time, they have the backing of the NUS. But more importantly perhaps, they have the momentum of the defining protest of this year’s winter – the Occupy Wall Street movement, in the form of ‘Occupy London’. The public support behind this new and somewhat bizarre anti-capitalist phenomenon could go some way in galvanising support for the protesters on the 9th November as they march again against tuition fees and cuts to higher education. Or will it go the other way, with media coverage obsessing over the camp outside St Paul’s cathedral and ignoring a lot of very angry young people? Of course, the August riots show us, albeit in a more debauched form, what happens when young people are ignored.

You could say the ‘student movement’ has already been rekindled. ‘Youth Fight for Jobs’, an organisation that has dubiously close links to the Trotskyist ‘Socialist Party’, is currently leading a march from Jarrow to London against youth unemployment. Though small, the dedication of the marchers (mostly college students and unemployed youth) is impressive – as of 25th October they’re in Coventry – and they vow to get to the capital with a very clear message to the coalition: sort out the mess that is a million young people out of work. It’s pretty hard to argue with that, regardless of what far-left organisation they’re linked to.

The student movement has never been without its fair share of far-left radicals. A senior NUS executive committee member advised me last year to ‘stay away from the Education Activist Network – they’re crazy’. However right or wrong that advice was, it was the EAN and the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts who started the idea for a student demonstration on the 9th November (dubbed No9k) – and managed to get the NUS on their side.

But it remains to be seen what will come of the 9th. Facebook, though never an accurate source for turnout estimates, has the number attending at around 3,500. Contrasted with that of last year’s demonstrations, which turned out ten times that even when it appeared to be dying, the outlook for success doesn’t look great. ‘Occupy the London Stock Exchange’, meanwhile, has 23,000 likes, and growing. Can the fight against fees capitalise (touchy word at the moment, I understand) on the success of Occupy LSX? Who knows. But with the Higher Education bill currently going in its final stages of the Lords – things are looking a bit bleak.

Still, we need something. I don’t have to tell you how much debt next year’s intake are going to be saddled with. Not to mention the numbers of poor students who won’t even be thinking about staying in college because of the scrapping of EMA. I’m not speaking as a self-described middle class ‘student leader’, unless someone from a council-flat can be properly middle-class. This is more important than background. This is about a new start to a movement that died out too soon. The newspapers are still fixed on the anti-capitalist demonstrations. Good. If an average sized camp outside St Paul’s Cathedral can garner that coverage – young people can set the agenda on the 9th. And then maybe the embers of last year’s rage can be rekindled.

Life for students is going to get considerably colder otherwise.

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