Students storm the City
SOAS students led a flash protest that brought the City of London to a standstill last Friday.
The protest, organised by the Socialist Worker Student Society, was called in response to Gordon Brown’s multi-million pound bailout of the stricken banking system.
Martin Smith of the SWP addressed the crowd with the words: “They call this Black Friday. We say it’s Fightback Friday.”
SOAS Student Union unanimously passed a motion calling for protest action against the bail-out.
Students from Oxford, Sussex, Essex and Sheffield supplemented the University of London and Socialist Worker contingents.
The body of students intended to protest outside the bank of England but accidentally ended up in the Royal Exchange Mall, an upmarket shopping centre near the bank of England.
Police then blocked off the Royal Exchange. Demonstrators regrouped and attempted to force their way into the Bank of England.
As Police desperately tried to clear the entrance to the bank the protestors turned up Threadneedle street passing the Royal Bank of Scotland building and French banking giant BNP Paribas.
A tense standoff followed as the police commander radioed for backup.
The Police formed a new cordon but were vastly outnumbered by students chanting “anti capitalista” -a slogan made famous during European mass anti-capitalist struggles in the early 2000s.
The demonstration was finally brought to a close by speeches from SWP leaders hailing the protest as: “a successful, vibrant, militant campaign”
Economists have dismissed the protest as schadenfreud on behalf of the “loony left”. With one banker telling London Student: “If the banking system goes down, everyone will suffer, we’d all be fucked, it’s just unthinkable. The bail-out was the only option”
SOAS student activist Clare Solomon told London Student about a follow up protest at Halloween: “We’re going to be having a fancy-dress, all night ‘Dance on the grave of Capitalism’ protest outside Lehman Brothers on October 31st“
Just a quick note to say that the vote was passed at the Union General Meeting of SOAS but it was by no means unanimous. We are a university with a vibrant MULTI-FACETED political body, with members spanning every inch of the wings of the political pelican, not just a looney-bin…
Oct 21st, 2008 at 1:37 pm
[…] The protest, organised by the Socialist Worker Student Society, was called in response to Gordon Brown’s multi-million pound bailout of the stricken banking system. Martin Smith of the SWP addressed the crowd with the words: “They call …[Continue Reading] […]