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Reflections on the invasion of Millbank Tower

Last Hours | 11.11.2010 22:08 | Other Press | Public sector cuts | Workers' Movements

During yesterday’s protest against cuts to education crowds stormed Tory headquarters. Windows where smashed and offices destroyed. As a result we can witness the capitalist system bend and buckle in its attempts to dismiss these acts of anger as illegitimate.

Amongst the 1,000s that played some role in the invasion of Millbank Tower, were workers and students from all areas of society. We condemn both the media claim that a small group of anarchist antagonists where responsible (juxtaposed by their own images showing thousands rallying around the building) as well as the notion that the students involved are part of a privileged class. The idea that working class youth are some how exempt from the desire for education is both naive and patronising.

Full text with links and images at  http://www.lasthours.org.uk/blogs/refund-our-future-reflections-on-the-invasion-of-millbank-tower/

This is an anonymous report we received

Arriving at the starting point of the demo the energy (and noise) levels were already extremely high. There were thousands of young people from all over the country, but it seemed that the whole event was being carefully controlled by stewards. All the placards had lame reformist slogans (admittedly with a few vaguely funny ones) and we were expecting a pretty tame march from A to B. When we finally found the Anarchist (or “Radical Workers and Students”) block, after fighting our way through Trotskyists and NUS stewards. We were disappointed to see that it was pretty small and not in a very good position in terms of visibility. On the march itself, the only act of civil disobedience we saw was a short lived attempt by about 20 people to sit down and block the road. However, when we passed the Millbank building the anarchists had been split up a little and when we looked back to try and spot some red and blag flags we were surprised to see that they were in amongst a group of probably hundreds of others attacking the building. People were running into the foyer, trying to smash windows and graffiti-ing the walls, with little police resistance. Because we didn’t see exactly how it started we don’t know how true the mainstream media’s claim that a small group of anarchists “hijacked” the peaceful protest by instigating property damage is. One thing though is for absolute certain, that self-identified anarchists were themselves only a small minority of all the people engaged in all the acts of civil disobedience and property damage. Even at this point there were literally hundreds of people either directly pushing against police, throwing stuff at them or smashing things. The NUS claim that there were over 50 000 people in total at the demonstration and only a minority took part in the “violence”. A “minority” of this number would still mean far more people than usually have attended British demos in recent years, let alone taken such militant action.

That first incident seemed to die down quite soon and we assumed it would be easily put down by the Met, based on previous painful experience of their capabilities. Besides, we had already seen more property damage than had happened at the London G20 protests, and of a more suitably symbolic building so it had already been more of a successful demo than we’d been expecting. We walked on and soon came to the end point of the march. Predictably enough for a demo organised by bureaucrats, we were expected to stand around listening to speeches and chanting in a space controlled by security guards and stewards. We decided “fuck this” and were on our way back down towards where we came from, when we noticed smoke coming from the courtyard in the Millbank building. The energy there then was pretty excited and there were virtually no police in sight, there was a small line of cops at the entrance and people were already throwing stuff at them – to a degree rarely seen at demos in Britain. However, we had received a call out to go to the business and innovation centre where apparently something was going down. We never made it there because as we were walking down we saw a crowd of people with a sound system break away from the crowds to the end point. They went down a side street and had a mini Reclaim-The-Streets style party with a line of riot police watching, whilst blocking the way to the Lib-dem headquarters. Amusingly that street was called “Cowley Street” the same name as that of a famous leader of the Brighton squatting movement during the great depression. People danced to dub step for a while and threw stuff at cops before going back toward the Tory hq where the fires were still burning. When we went back there we saw a push-and-shove situation with the cops in front of one of the big glass walls, that was already nearly completely smashed apart.

The stand-off continued for a while, with heightening tensions, amplified by shouts of support from thousands of people behind. Some demonstrators were already inside waving placards and further trying to help break the glass. When the crowds saw that people had got on to the roof and were waving banners, red and black flags and their fists in the air, they screamed encouragement and further energised those at the front lines. Eventually some people started smashing apart a different glass wall and the police didn’t even try to stop them. It came down with a resounding crash and we all piled in to the foyer of the building, there was probably over 100 people in this area, some smashing windows, some pushing against cops to gain to access to the stairs, all shouting “tory scum, tory scum”. There was a tense stand off at the door to the stairs for a while and the very few cops guarding it seemed shit-scared and confused, (not at all the “brave thin blue line” that David Cameron claims) but finally this was resolved and we got the doors open. This enabled many to make their way through the building, smashing what they could and making their way to the roof. Many managed to escape through the fire exit after staying as long as they individually felt necessary, but according to news reports some were still inside hours later, and many later got arrested.
More on the attack on the Millbank building:

The storming of the Tory party HQ occurred about an hour after the organised march had already started gathering at its final destination point to watch important people deliver pre-recorded (largely inaudible) messages on a giant TV screen. A high-spirited spontaneous demo had been occupying the square outside of the building with a bonfire of placards since the march had passed it by en route. This was despite the stewards’ attempts to file everybody by the building unnoticed, and the crowd seemed a broad representation of demo participants (mostly unmasked with a variety of placards and signs); far from the ‘organised contingent of troublemaker anarchists’ that Aaron Porter, the MET and the mainstream media have predictably reported as at the heart of all transgressive action. In fact, the radical student and workers’ bloc called for by Sol Fed and Afed was disappointingly small and disorganised; comprising just a handful of red and black flags amongst other demonstrators, and seemed to get broken apart 2/3 of the way through the march when cops held the crowd back at a roundabout.

When the plate glass windows of the building started getting smashed, the atmosphere within the square was energetic. The entire crowd seemed behind the actions, cheering support for those at the front, calling for people to move in en masse, and continuously pushing forward in an attempt to do so. This action did not seem in any way pre-planned, but happened spontaneously in the midst of a lively and diverse mass demo of students wanting to direct their anger directly at some of those responsible for selling out their futures (continual chants of ‘Tory scum’ and the like).

There were relatively few cops defending the building at this point and the crowd was able to push through at various points using bodymass with minimal physical interaction once the windows had been broken. Many, once in, set about helping others to join them by smashing other windows (lots of them without masks) to open the atrium up to the surging crowd. Greater numbers were only prevented from getting into the atrium (which filled up quickly) by the lifts having been disabled and the stairwell being blocked off by cops with drawn batons. However the police were lacking in numbers and were prevented from forming a solid line by protestors linking arms and using effective bodymass (we witnessed one individual dearrested by the crowd after having been pulled by cops from this group). Eventually the few police defending the door withdrew, enabling many of the crowd to join comrades on the roof.

Physical violence inside was minimal at this stage, consisting mainly just of pushing, with cops outnumbered and therefore unwilling to antagonise, and protestors intent only on getting further into the building. In fact most of the violence named by the news reports seems mainly to refer just to property damage. This consisted mostly of smashed windows and fire hoses/extinguishers set off, although we have also heard reports of a fire extinguisher dropped from the roof, and we left relatively early. The crowd packed into the square remained supportive of those within the building, cheering and waving at people on the roof. After less than half an hour of our having joined the initial group of occupiers on the roof, a decision was taken collectively by a spontaneous meeting of lots of those present to leave the building together as a group, which we did successfully, a small number of people remaining behind. Having locked their doors, the tory offices which occupied the lower floors of the building (and those inside them) remained untouched.

Last Hours
- Homepage: http://www.lasthours.org.uk

Additions

Some simple lessons from the the day to be spread

12.11.2010 00:03

1) Anarchist / radical direct action blocks don't work very well tactically. Better to just be on the demo in whereever you want to be and seek affinity when the times comes for acting. In this way, the cops and FIT teams job is harder. This was much more successful yesterday than any pre-advertised black/radical/anarchist direct actions blocks.

2) We have to teach people via Internet, leaflets and word of mouth to mask up. Too many photos of people going nutso without any face covering. Has to be a culture of masking up! It's up to us to spread that culture!

3) We have to deal with news photographers standing in a phalanx next door to any radical action. It's serves no purpose to have them photograph people and put their liberty at risk. They must be told to fuck off and if they refuse then physically attacked.
The other problem is just the general mad level of people taking photos at riots who then post them to Facebook etc. The cops will trawl all these sites in an attempt to find pictures of people acting. It's a difficult problem. What can be done?

4) Sound System on bikes are amazing ways to move large blocks of people! More sound systems on demos

5) Keep mobile! The beautiful thing about the student demo was how people didn't fixate on confrontation with the cops. When the crowd and sound system went to Victoria St and then the Lib Dem Hq, after a short while of seeing that it was under control by the cops, the sound system just moved onto the next thing! Keep it lively, keep it mobile.

Millbanker


Comments

Hide the following 8 comments

and there goes any hope...

12.11.2010 11:36

"3) We have to deal with news photographers standing in a phalanx next door to any radical action. It's serves no purpose to have them photograph people and put their liberty at risk. They must be told to fuck off and if they refuse then physically attacked."

well done, the people are not led or directed by the government but by the media.
Fuck them off and guess what.

watercannons and permanant riot cops no demos and a crack down we have never seen, and all demanded by the media.....and cheared on by the public.

People like you should just stick to trying to get laid in the student uni bar and leave social change to folks who may just have read a little more than fucking das kapital.

anon


Media and Photographers

12.11.2010 13:07

If you support this sort of action, then you have to support the people taking the action. If someone who is not masked up is doing something illegal and being snapped by the world's media then they will be identified and face arrest and court. Photographers are trying to get the best shots to sell to papers. In the main they don't care about the consequences for the people they photograph. As we are not interested in what they do for a job and more interested in taking action and caring about the people we take action with, they should be told to fuck off and if they don't want they should be physically confronted.

The media can take all the shots it wants of demos and crowds and fires and grafitti and everything BUT if they are putting people's liberty at risk they have to be confronted. It's that simple and we should be putting it into practice, the same as we try to fuck of the cops and their cameras.

Millbanker


@anon

12.11.2010 13:37

"well done, the people are not led or directed by the government but by the media.
Fuck them off and guess what.
watercannons and permanant riot cops no demos and a crack down we have never seen, and all demanded by the media.....and cheared on by the public."

Are you joking? The media are already demanding that kind of shit; when it comes to the crunch they are always on the side of the rich and powerful, whether you 'fuck them off' or not.

Know your enemy.

2


Threats of violence.

13.11.2010 08:59

The world is not led by the media anymore than it is led by politicians. The only people who believe that are people who would like it to be so.

The comments from the poster advocating physical assaults on the media speaks only for himself. His view is not shared by anybody on the inside of the cuts movement.

Everytime the anarchists score a hit this joker always appears asking people to attack the media, obviously his intention is to drive a wedge between the media and the anti-cuts movement.

This commentator is completely alone.

Indymedia has a number of its own photographers, some of whom are very good at what they do. Nobody who reads Indymedia regularly would ever advocate attacking its own contributors which is what this poster is clearly hoping for.

I have no idea why illegal threats of violence have effectively been promoted by the mods.

IM


Response to IM

13.11.2010 11:22

"The comments from the poster advocating physical assaults on the media speaks only for himself. His view is not shared by anybody on the inside of the cuts movement".

Yes, of course I speak for myself. I don't presume to speak on anybody else's behalf. However, you pretend to speak for 'anybody on the inside of the anti-cuts movement'. All I am doing is putting forward suggestions that I think are practical ideas. People can do what they like with them.


'Everytime the anarchists score a hit this joker always appears asking people to attack the media, obviously his intention is to drive a wedge between the media and the anti-cuts movement'.

My intention is to stop people from going to prison. It has nothing to do with attacking the media in a broader sense even though my interest and faith in 'the media' is small. It's the actions of people in the media on protests that puts people inside that I am writing about. My original post says that photographers should be asked to fuck off and if they then choose not to stop then they should be physically confronted. How people do this is up to them.


'Indymedia has a number of its own photographers, some of whom are very good at what they do. Nobody who reads Indymedia regularly would ever advocate attacking its own contributors which is what this poster is clearly hoping for.'

Indymedia is one of the few parts of 'the media' that, more or less, does not publish pictures of people doing things on demos that might put them in prison. Occasionally people submit photos with peoples faces pixelated out. It's not perfect, but it show some security consciousness.


'I have no idea why illegal threats of violence have effectively been promoted by the mods'.

Maybe because the moderators are far more nuanced about street politics than you are and can take what I say at face value instead of being hysterical, liberal and disingenuous about it. You seem like a troll anyway.

*

Any movement that doesn't support its own prisoners is rubbish. As part of this, we need to also support people not becoming prisoners in the first place. That's why people develop a security consciousness, block FIT teams, un-arrest people, encourage people to mask up, tell photographers to fuck off...etc.

Millbanker


Photo example

13.11.2010 11:54

Press photographers putting peoples liberty at risk
Press photographers putting peoples liberty at risk

Here is a good example of what is being discussed. People breaking windows and press photographers happily snapping away.

Millbanker


Threats against the Media!

14.11.2010 09:55

"take what I say at face value instead of being hysterical, liberal and disingenuous about it. You seem like a troll anyway."

Well there are some trolls on Indymedia although the word troll isn't a very good word to use to describe them. They see themselves as a little more than simple bullies.

But it is clear that some are using the anonymous nature of IM to try to claim they are something they are not. Trying to pretend that they are bona fide left wing activists when in actual fact they are tools of the state.

By the way, nice picture. Thanks for re-publishing it!!!

IM