The student protests are an important short-term development, which will undoubtedly worry the coalition.
But are they also, as the Met Commissioner noted, a harbinger of something else: namely, a return to a late 1960s, Continental-style protest, which will encourage other groups – from Tube drivers to Tamils – to use sit-ins, strikes and ultimately street-based violence as a political tool.
The NUS rejects that their tactics are associated with violence, knowing it will turn the majority of English people against them. Blame is heaped on small groups of agitators. Anthony Barnett argues that unlike in the 1960s, “the relationship to violence is also much better, as shown by the spontaneous revulsion of the demonstrators against throwing the fire extinguisher at Millbank.”
I’m not so sure. I see a festival-type atmosphere degenerate amid agitation. After a few hous of tension, things become more permissive: it is seen as legitimate to vandalise private property, terrorise citizens and attack the police.
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