BRITISH STUDENT leaders have condemned several hundred protesters who tried to storm the Conservative Party’s London headquarters yesterday after a peaceful 50,000-strong demonstration turned sour. Students from all over the United Kingdom had gathered in London to protest against plans to triple university fees.
Windows were smashed at the Millbank Tower office block occupied by the Conservatives, though staff, including party co-chairman Sayeeda Warsi, were not evacuated, contrary to earlier reports. Some protesters did manage to get on to the roof of the building, while one threw a fire extinguisher from the 30-floor building.
The Metropolitan Police, who have been criticised for heavy-handed policing of demonstrations, had adopted a light approach which worked well until minutes after the demonstrators, who included Socialist Workers’ Party activists, had begun to leave the Millbank protest, near MI5’s headquarters.
Last night, police commissioner Paul Stephenson said officers had failed to anticipate the violence, and that it was “an embarrassment for London and for us”.
Mayor of London Boris Johnson said it had been “an appalling abuse of the right to protest by a small minority today. Intolerable. They will face the full force of the law.”
During speeches before the violence erupted, University and College Union general secretary Sally Hunt had led protesters in chants of “Tory scum”, though most of the anger was directed at the Liberal Democrats.
National Union of Students’ president Aaron Porter said they would not “accept the previous generation passing on their debts to us, particularly when they were educated in universities for free”.
Criticising Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg for rowing back on a pledge to freeze and later abolish tuition fees, Mr Porter said: “That resistance begins today. That resistance begins here. We will not pay for others’ mistakes. We will make others pay.”
Most of the demonstrators filtered away peacefully, though a small group moved towards Millbank office block where an effigy and some placards were burnt, but, even then, it took some minutes for the mood to turn ugly.
Missiles were thrown at the building by a number of hooded demonstrators, who broke windows.
A small number of police officers guarding the building were overcome as some protesters entered the building. Just yards away, people continued eating in a restaurant.
Most of the windows on the ground-floor of the building were broken. Several police officers were injured, including one who suffered a bloody head wound.
A stick was thrown at her as she was taken away for treatment.
Last night, the National Union of Students, concerned that its campaign would lose middle-ground public support, said “rogue protesters” had carried out “despicable violence”.
Students leaving the march broadcast hundreds of “tweets” condemning the violence. There was some surprise, however, that the students had targeted the Conservatives’ office and not the Lib Dem headquarters, just hundreds of yards away.
Efforts by some on Twitter to encourage protests failed to get a response.