How feisty student marches in the early 2010s led one young activist to anarcho-syndicalism and a path of direct action
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As someone who grew up in Britain during the long victory march of Thatcherism, I was in some ways born into a generation of the powerless. Ours was a world where popular power was not merely lacking, but declared entirely surplus to requirements. We were told the slow, measured advance of capital would gradually sand the sharper edges from life, and everything would improve, gradually but inevitably. Who truly needs power in such a society? Simply go to work, consume, and hand over your vote every few years; go back to sleep, all is well.
Like many others of my generation, I began to realise something was wrong with this picture around 9/11, the War on Terror and all the various horrors that followed. I began attending protests, but found them failing to quell my internal disquiet with society. Many of the protests I attended seemed just as much a part of the stultifying social rhythm as was not protesting. Protests were there to help you let off steam, but they weren’t expected to actually achieve anything; the object of a protest was the protest itself.
During the global financial crisis of 2008, I found my political path leading to anarcho-syndicalism and I made contact with the Solidarity Federation in London. At the time they were heavily involved with supporting parents occupying Lewisham Bridge School, attempting to stop the school’s proposed demolition. It was a struggle they would go on to win.
For someone as new to political action as myself it was a revelation. Witnessing this small, local struggle, I understood what I had found lacking in my previous political endeavours; that the purpose of a protest is not protest, but to win an objective. In short, the object of a protest is not protest, but power.
When the Tory-Lib Dem austerity coalition came to power in the spring of 2010 I had moved to Oxford and helped found a SolFed local in Thames Valley. We were soon involved in the local anti-cuts movement. It took a form very familiar to me: marches, speeches; but it didn’t really seem to take off until Millbank happened.
On November 10th 2010, what was intended as a typical A-to-B march organised by the National Union of Students took an unexpected turn when a group of protesters broke away from the main event and ended up attacking Millbank Tower, the location of the Conservative Party campaign headquarters. Soon, more and more students made their way along the river and the building ended up first under siege and then occupied.
I wasn’t there myself, having finished my studies and living away from London, but I remember surreptitiously refreshing news feeds at my desk all day, following the unfolding action minute by minute. It felt like a dam breaking, a reaction not merely to the actions of the coalition but to all of the lies sold to our generation. There had been other major protest actions prior to Millbank, such as the 2009 G20 summit protests, but it felt like something was very different in the air post-Millbank.
Despite round condemnation from the media, politicians and not least the NUS leadership, the effects of Millbank spread far and wide. Even the previously sleepy anti-cuts marches in Oxford were filled with a new energy. Our first local anti-cuts march after Millbank was joined by a large group of school students. They were wonderfully uncontrolled, not merely angry but joyous in their anger.
When we reached the centre of town, the students made an abrupt turn. Having no intention of attending the scheduled rally, they instead made a beeline for the nearest bank. It is telling that, despite being widely characterised as mere ignorant yobs, these young people had instinctively identified the true enemy as not only the government, but capital.
Mounted police who had been lying in wait appeared instantly from the side streets. Along with officers on foot they formed a cordon around the bank. Acting spontaneously and with no particular plan, the students simply bounced down the road to the next bank, the police in tow. This cat and mouse dance continued until the protest eventually dissipated. It was an unusually strong reaction by the Thames Valley Police to a protest, and if it had been intended as a show of strength, it had to me the opposite effect. I can still see the expression of one of the mounted officers; his face fearful, despite his clear position of strength. The foundation of orthodoxy that held him up had shifted.
This energy continued into other major student protests around the country but also into the wider anti-cuts movement. More protests were called, eventually building to the TUC-led March for the Alternative in London on March 26th 2011. Everyone knew it was going to be huge. Protesters from all over the country travelled down to London, including our own SolFed local. The march was to be so large that it would begin as multiple feeder marches across the city. Various anarchist groups had agreed to form a red and black bloc, with our own independent feeder march starting at Kennington Park just outside the Oval cricket grounds. As we set off, the first thing I noticed was the almost complete lack of police. Stretched as they were by the numbers city-wide, we were free to march down the street as we pleased. It seems such a small thing, but it’s also a microcosm of the entire thing; to be able to march down a street in your own city at your own choosing. It is a small taste of what the world should be.
When we eventually merged with one of the official feeder marches the scale of the protest became apparent. Attendance estimates range from 250,000 to 500,000, but on the ground such distinctions fade away, and you are only aware of being part of a great mass of people.
The planned TUC route headed to Hyde Park for the usual round of speeches, but we had no intention of going that way. As we reached Trafalgar Square, we broke off from the main march and turned into Pall Mall East. We rounded the corner and saw that the road was lined by police on either side. We bunched up as the front of march hesitated, with the collective memory of a thousand police kettles. Though just as quickly a shared thought seemed to flash between the police and ourselves: “They can’t stop us”. We were too many, they were too few, the street was too small. Our bloc set off again with newfound confidence.
As we emerged from the other end of Pall Mall East, we caught sight of the main march across some open ground. When they saw the anarchists were off to cause trouble, they gave a huge cheer. In that moment, I understood that we weren’t two movements, the mainstream and the radical, but one movement. Many in the main march would never dream of doing what we were doing, and many in our march would have felt stifled and constrained in theirs. Yet neither could exist without the other. Without the mass of their numbers we would not be free to take action. Without us, indeed without prior actions such as Millbank, the effect of their numbers would have been wasted.
Our bloc went on to take action that day against a number of companies on Oxford Street, many of which were a part of the government’s Workfare scheme, extorting unpaid labour from unemployed people. Other groups unaffiliated with our bloc also took part in actions, the most well-known being the occupation of the Fortnum and Mason store in St.James.
At the end of the day, a large number of us gathered in a pub in Holborn, and I still remember the energy of that evening, a collective buzz of confidence. It felt as though every anarchist in the UK was in there, and that may not have been far off the mark. I still remember occasionally glancing out of the window and seeing cops sidling awkwardly along the other side of the street, observing us nervously but unable to take action. For that small moment in time, the city felt like it was ours, not theirs.
It could be argued that the actions taken that day weren’t ultimately effective. The government continued its regime of cuts and the economic orthodoxy it engendered led directly to the present political moment. Yet I think that underplays the day. From the momentum it generated SolFed alone went on to have further victories against the Workfare scheme, against wage theft, against cheating landlords. A few years later I myself helped a co-worker successfully defend himself against an attempted unfair dismissal. This friend was not an anarchist, nor even particularly political. Yet he had heard my stories about our movement and our victories. He understood that on some level I was connected to a wider power that could help him in his time of need, and what’s more, he was right.
The March for the Alternative gave me a glimpse of the power we can wield, and gave me faith that our cause, despite its difficulties, has the capability of doing great things, and making a real difference in the world; that the powers that currently control us are not invincible, but simply sit at the other end of a scale, and that scale can be shifted. That day taught me that sometimes a show of strength is simply a show of strength, but still no lesser for that.
This article first appeared in the Summer issue of Freedom Journal. Images: Libcom