Comment: On the front line with student protestors
There’s always something exciting about the police losing control.
By Ian Dunt
There’s no point pretending otherwise. It’s rare and dramatic and it’s hard to quell that frisson of excitement, that sense that something out of the ordinary is happening and you are there to witness it.
For plenty of the students at today’s protest, it will have been the first time they’ve experienced it. Demonstrators managed to get past the minimal security at Millbank tower in the early afternoon, just as I was coming out of PMQs. By the time I got down to the area, police and a few demonstrators were in the foyer. Within minutes, an additional push had rid the entrance of the police and you could see black-clad demonstrators forcing their way into the lifts.
There’s a strange atmosphere to this sort of thing, as the crowd gradually develops a group consciousness. This is mob mentality and it’s the phenomenon by which people end up behaving in ways they would never normally dream of. The mob mentality demands action. It bores quickly. So the smashing of window is greeted by cheers, as is graffiti and fireworks. It’s true that a hardcore of troublemakers do most of the action. But the support comes from the group. And there was considerable support there today, despite the rhetoric about a ‘troublemaking minority’ which you will hear about over the next few days.
The most active participants were, as ever, the black bloc, that militant tribe of anarchists whose faces are covered in black scarves. You can tell it’s them by the determined walk and the confidence as well as the get-up. They pull everyone back before smashing windows. Whatever you think, they’re actually relatively careful with the people around them. But yep, they smash stuff. That’s what they do.
The south-facing window – the first to be smashed – was actually the last to come down. All of a sudden, amongst the confusion in the foyer, black bloc activists pulled people away from the west-facing window and brought it down. The police watched, uselessly. There were far too few to try and stop them. Inside, the steady stream of occupiers were enjoying themselves, stealing policemen’s helmets and smashing the windows with chairs. A trio of black guys sat in the receptionist chair and held up a sign reading: “Black people”. I actually thought that was quite funny, in a Monty Python sort of way.
By the time the west-side windows followed, the emotional momentum of the crowd dominated everything. Soon enough, all the windows were coming down. The foyer was rammed with protestors. There was no real in or out of the building. It was just some pitiful bits of wall masked by chaos.
The smell of smoke and the sound of shattering glass contribute to the sense of occasion. These are the sights and sounds of riot, and people involved in protests are likely to be pulled along by them, assured that something different is coming. Without understanding the momentum of group consciousness it’s really quite impossible to understand how these things happen. The protestors today -some seasoned, but many of them fresh-faced – certainly had that in their eyes.
Soon enough the first protestors emerged on the roof. They unfolded a banner and waved and set off fire extinguishers. Someone threw one down, narrowly missing the police on the ground. The crowd on the ground started booing and chanting: “Stop throwing s**t.”
Soon enough the riot police emerged, forming a V-shape around the demonstrators, with the bottom of the V by the front door of the building. Those people that had managed to run riot inside were cordoned off in the corner of the room, surrounded by police, ready to be carted off. Beside me, a woman delivered a news report to camera – a small consumer camera – calmly and professionally, like a trainee student journalist, then suddenly turned around and started screaming ‘Tory scum’.
To my right, a protestor started vomiting from smoke inhalation. People tried to get her some water and as they did so someone grabbed me from behind and punched me in the ribs. “Tough day at the office?” they shouted. By the time I turned around they had gone. I presume they interpreted my suit as a sign of Conservative employment.
I took that as my cue to get behind police lines. There’s always that element of nervousness as you do so. Riot cops are strange and scary animals. Stony faced, clearly excited and nervous – and at the same time, utterly silent and fully trained. They can sometimes turn on you – journalist or not. It’s heat of the moment stuff.
He looked at me suspiciously as I kept flashing my parliamentary pass. “Lobby pass, lobby pass,” I barked. Slowly he stepped to one side and I was through, with the other journalists, safe. Suddenly something smashed about two feet from me. Someone somewhere had thrown a bottle. I looked round at the other journalists. Most of them were film crews with rudimentary helmets. Just as I felt vulnerable, a small explosion went off. It looked like an aerosol had been thrown in the fire. Everyone jumped. People didn’t notice the orders being passed down police lines. Soon enough they were forcing demonstrators back, closing the V shape off to the east and forcing them onto Millbank.
I’ve seen a lot of demonstrations and actually the police action today was very sensible and proportionate. Sure, they should have been prepared for what happened at Millbank Tower and the press will no doubt remind them of that for the next week or so. But following that mistake, the police response I saw was exemplary. This was the first major flare-up since the G20, when disgraceful and heavy-handed police action caused someone’s death. On that day thousands of young people learnt to treat the police as the enemy. By contrast, the police action that took place after the occupation today was about right.
You can shout all you like about what happened today. Plainly it’s not right to smash windows or ruin a building. It was dangerous and ultimately it’s undemocratic.
But if that’s all we talk about then we haven’t understood what happening. We are witnessing the radicalisation of a generation. This is to current students what the Iraq war was to the last lot – and what the poll tax was to those before them. As I walked back to parliament, with crowds of protestors chanting ‘Tory scum’ at me because of my suit, I saw a young girl shouting: “Down with MPs – all they ever do is lie.”
It’s juvenile, of course, and immature. And it happens to be false. But what the Lib Dems have done was teach these people, whose first ever vote was for their party, that politicians’ words are without value. Right now that girl is passionate and idealistic. In a few years, she will be one of those people down the pub, utterly cynical and disconnected.
Their bitter anger – which is real, valid and justified – is a more important lesson to take from today than police failures or property damage.
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