Revolt

The student revolt that erupted in November 2010 was one of the most radical in British history. Hundreds of thousands of students – organising themselves outside traditional party or student union structures – walked out of classes, took to the streets, and occupied their universities. Out of apathy and disengagement came the forcible entry of a new generation onto the stage of British politics. The demonstrations sent shockwaves through the heart of the British establishment. The police, newspapers and government were caught unawares. Fighting the proposed tripling of tuition fees and the cuts to Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA), students posed the first and most serious challenge to the Coalition government's agenda of austerity. The 'austerity generation' was made not as a victim of unjust policies, but in resistance to them. This book is the story of that movement told through the voices of those who made it.

The year 2010 represented a 'widening of the field of possibility', as Jean-Paul Sartre wrote of 1968. No student movement in British history had so openly flouted the rules of political engagement. No student movement had ever caused such a 'public order' crisis, nor been met with such severe police repression. Not since the Iraq War had such a powerful social movement emerged on Britain's streets. Never had a movement been so representative of the student body, nor possessed so strong a case for their demands. Never had there been such a radical potential for linking students struggling against fees and cuts with others resisting austerity. Never had the opportunity to politicise a whole generation been so cruelly missed.

The movement was unsuccessful in defeating the government's plans, thwarted by the intransigence of the Coalition. Like those in 1968, the rulers in 2010 also outlasted the student revolt. David Cameron – like Richard Nixon, Georges Pompidou, Leonid Brezhnev and Edward Heath – was the ultimate victor. The government knew the movement was about more than fees and cuts in education. The Financial Times understood the significance of the stand-off with the students: without winning this first battle, the newspaper claimed, the Coalition would come unstuck when other groups were affected by austerity. The students' spirit of resistance could spread.

The outcome of the movement did not diminish the profundity of the experience for those present. 'It is likely the class of 2010 will be marked forever by these events', The Guardian predicted. 'Perhaps, 40 years from now, this week's demos will be the subject of nostalgic documentaries and writings, as those of 1968 have recently been.' Students in 2010 understood the historical significance of their actions. 'It was our '68', a participant in this book noted. 'We felt like we were changing the world', said another.

There is nothing new about student protest in Britain. Yet the 2010 revolt was to be more passionate and intense because of its rarity. The revolt challenged stereotypes. Networked forms of online communication allowed the twenty-first-century student protest to be simultaneously local and global. French onlookers watched in amazement as British students performed their month-long jacquerie. The French student movement had a more developed tradition of direct action and a history of victories. In 2006, students had successfully united with workers to prevent the Contrat Premiere Embauche (CPE) law that stripped young people of many of their workers' rights. Occupations occurred at 90 universities, with 3 million people taking to the streets. In Paris for part of the 2010 movement, Malia Bouattia recounts how French students were shocked when they saw 'these otherwise quiet, tame people that usually just queue for the sake of queuing, ... suddenly ... kicking off due to the tripling of fees'. Paul Mason watched a young man address the SOAS occupation:

One man, a young Syrian, stood up to say: 'What we're doing here is having a global impact. This French journalist came up to me and said, this is amazing, this never happened before. What are the Brits doing? I said – what, you think the French are the only ones who can riot?'

The government was afraid of 'contagion' from the continent. In 1968, the British student protests had been tame in comparison to those in France, Italy, Germany, Japan, and the United States. 'There is no memory of revolution in modern Britain', noted a leading activist from the time. The discrepancy between the image of passive British students and the images shown on television screens in late 2010 encouraged a feeling of rupture.

The 2010 student revolt was one instance in a wider set of global anti-establishment struggles. The movement was indelibly stamped by the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis. Movements of the streets rather than revolts through the ballot box offered the chief means of articulating a collective grievance. From the student protests to the 2011 London riots, from Occupy to the Arab Spring, things were 'kicking off everywhere'.

The student movement of 2010 showcased new political, economic, social, communicative and technological developments. Movements of the streets provided laboratories for new and liberating uses of social media. Students outmanoeuvred traditional political organisations and experimented with new modes of political practice. New social subjects emerged, spontaneously organising themselves from below and building through old and new networks. University students defending public education mobilised with college students defending a weekly grant (EMA) to help poorer students stay in college. 'There was a generational un-channelled anger out there', remembered college student Kieran Sutton. The spectre of the 'graduate without a future' united with youth from the 'slums of London' hung over Britain in late 2010.

The abruptness of the revolt laid waste the assumption of youth apathy – of a 'jilted generation' incapable of political interest, collective action or common purpose. Students posed fundamental questions of justice and fairness to a political class unaccustomed to open defiance. Complacently assuming that student unrest had been vanquished, the government looked on as students transformed themselves from passive consumers of education into founders of a radical movement. Youth alienation from politics and the political process had been decades in the making. One researcher claimed the 'millennials' were the most apathetic generation in British history. The electoral promises of all parties – Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and Labour – were broken so brazenly, and with such little chance of recourse, that the students had no one to represent them but themselves.

Having lamented youth disengagement from politics for decades, when faced with a real movement of young people, Britain's political class closed ranks. According to Nick...