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

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)