Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Students Show the Way – Honours All Round for the Millbank Protesters

riotact | 14.11.2010 11:26 | Education | Public sector cuts | Social Struggles | World

The University lecturers who described Wednesday’s Student Protest as magnificent were fucking spot on. Thousands of students were involved in the trashing of the Tory Party HQ and despite the media’s howls of outrage it seems most of the country agree (1).

With anarchist organisations rightly mocking (2) the ludicrous allegations of infiltration, the pictures and news footage from the day reveal the truth, thousands of pissed off young folk ready to wreak furious vengeance on the Tories and the pigs who protect them.

It’s true that, as on almost every other major London demo in the last few years, a Radical Bloc had been called. The size and denseness of the demonstration made this bloc pretty difficult to find and most of a radical persuasion were by and large scattered throughout the march. Few anarchists were in attendance as a part of the march first broke away and began to shout slogans outside Millbank.

Arriving with a comrade after the smell of burning drew us to the courtyard outside Tory HQ we were pleased to see a bonfire lit and chants of Tory Scum ringing out. Then someone let off a flare. We were joyful, even gleeful at some fucking spirit finally being shown but we assumed that would be pretty much it. After hanging around the crowd thinned a little and it seemed that this potential flashpoint was largely over so we wandered over to the Tate and the speeches, where frankly, it was fucking boring.

With the Millbank building complex a minor detour from the end point of a very busy march people, hoping for more than standing about listening to the usual suspects say the usual things, began to drift back to Millbank. With the march still arriving and stretching right back to Parliament Square this left two way traffic in and out of the Millbank complex and the numbers quickly swelled. It was clear the temperature had hotted up considerably when I arrived back to see a huge crowd, by now attempting to rush the doors of the Millbank building. A line of coppers, hung out to dry and shitting themselves, were breached several times as people rushed the door and many forced their way into the building. Some coppers started to suit up into riot gear the building’s lobby but reinforcements were not forthcoming and elsewhere the streets were pig free.

As each rush at the police guarding the doors led to more people gaining access to the lobby the windows began to be attacked. When the first window was smashed scores of people gained access to the building and as the filth lost control people finally made it up the stairs. As folk’s confidence increased, with each broken windows drawing huge cheers, eventually all of the glass at the front of the building was smashed and the Tory Party headquarters was opened to the public.

By now many people had made it to the roof. Coppers inside, now mostly in riot gear, indulged in brief skirmishes and got well punchy but were unable to prevent the lobby getting trashed. The first line of TSG reinforcements were successfully fought off.

In the areas around the building there were shades of Reclaim the Streets as people skinned up, drank round one of several bonfires and danced to a samba band. The only coppers in sight were those kettled in the lobby of the Tory HQ. They certainly weren’t fucking singing anymore.

Scores now engaged in chucking stuff at the filth were heartily cheered by the thousands now gathered outside Millbank. As the day wore on the student’s confidence to challenge the police grew and the police line was repeatedly driven back into a huddle in the building lobby. Some scamps went off to have a pop at the Libdem Headquarters whilst all around the back and sides of Millbank coppers and demonstrators alike searched, sometimes successfully, for other ways in. Fire extinguishers were let off and papers thrown from the roof of the building which inside was receiving a much needed make over.

The fire extinguisher being thrown off the building was not the smartest move, and as this video shows (3), not a crowd pleaser. That said it was far more likely to be a moment of youthful recklessness than a serious attempted murder as claimed by the bungling Met who have already seemingly arrested the wrong person (4). In any event, no-one died, which is more than you can say for the last time the filth went mental on the streets of London (5).

As the lumbering TSG finally turned up in force they eventually managed to take control of the building. Several hundred people continued to challenge the police line, however with the march over and coaches beginning to leave to take people home the crowd thinned. Nothing to be ashamed of. Far better to leave after a hugely successful day with heads held high then take a load of casualties fighting the TSG in an empty road.

The mood in the pub was in stark contrast to the doom and gloom of post demo pints of the last few years. There were smiling faces aplenty and much merry-making with unanimous agreement that this is just the beginning.

Whilst the police won’t be so inept next time, and many will have revenge on their tiny minds, the kids who did this for the first time last Wednesday will be equally emboldened next time round. One criticism all who fancy a shot at chucking stuff at coppers and through windows might take to heart. The pictures plastered across the media show the danger of doing this kinda shit without wearing a mask. Fitwatch have produced some information for those who have inadvertently found their faces in the papers (6). Just as important, if you have pictures of people on your camera, iphone or anywhere else of people who can be identified doing shit they wouldn’t want the old bill to see then consider deleting them. It’s nice to have a souvenir but not at the expense of some poor fucker doing three to five. More importantly, if you have put pics like this on your blogs, facebook pages or anywhere else, take them fucking down. We’re in a for a long haul, martyrs are currently not required and the police do a difficult enough job without us helping them.

And whilst the Daily Telegraph and other low brow rags scream ‘off with their heads’ in the usual macho display of bravado, have no fear that the pissy little runts attempting to the run the country are shitting themselves.

This is just the beginning, whether the Union Leadership take up the challenge laid down by the militancy of the students remains to be seen and looks increasingly irrelevent. The odious NUS leader Aaron Porter has just shown how out of touch it is possible for a Union leader to be with their members. Thousands have joined a facebook group supporting the Millbank protesters (7) who Labour stooge and Tory wannebe Porter called despicable.

With Direct Action called for around the country on the 24th November (8), meetings and protests taking place around the country and the Vodafone protesters organising a day of direct action against tax avoiders for December 4th (9) it is clear that resistance to the chinless millionaires living it up at our expense will be very different to the SWP dominated, life sapping marches of the last few years. It took ten years before the anger over Thatchers policies spilled into the Poll Tax riots. It’s been six months since this shower of shit weren’t elected and already the tory party HQ has been ransacked. Most people haven’t even lost their jobs or faced benefit cuts yet but the mood is militant. Resistance, as they say, is fertile. It is time to escalate.

In deference to duvet hugging students, this report is a little late.

(1)  http://ianbone.wordpress.com/2010/11/13/daily-star-readers-back-student-rioters/
(2)  http://www.solidarityfederation.org.uk/hardcore-troublemaker-anarchist-group-laughs-off-millbank-blame-game
(3)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkB7eZhgFn0&feature=related
(4)  http://ianbone.wordpress.com/2010/11/13/police-get-the-wrong-fire-extinguisher-man/
(5)  http://www.iantomlinsonfamilycampaign.org.uk/
(6)  http://fitwatch.org.uk/2010/11/beating-police-repression-after-the-student-occupation.html
(7)  http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/We-need-unity-defend-the-Millbank-protestors/128397300550227
(8)  http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/event.php?eid=134751449911080
(9)  http://ukuncut.wordpress.com/2010/11/12/december-4th-day-of-mass-action/

 http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2010/11/13/students-show-the-way-honours-all-round-for-the-millbank-protesters/


riotact
- Homepage: http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/

Comments

Display the following 2 comments

  1. CCTV — Lance
  2. @Lance — MrLazy
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech