Police “Bubble” Students

Campers, construction workers and student activists alike have been left steaming over heavy-handed policing at last week’s protests.

An estimated 10,000 university students, schoolchildren and parents swarmed through the city centre last Wednesday to protest the government’s higher education agenda — described by organisers the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts as an attempt to end education as a public service.

Scotland Yard reported just two-dozen arrests from the day’s events — but the protesters themselves complained of heavy-handed policing.

Around 4000 officers policed the demonstration, hemming in the march on all sides in a moving kettle known as a ‘bubble’.

Even before the march began, organisers voiced anger at reports police had authorised rubber bullets and written to activists with no criminal record warning them they could be arrested for “anti-social behaviour.”

Meanwhile videos uploaded to YouTube showed dozens of plainclothes police and snatch squads dragging away apparently peaceful protesters.

The day’s events also saw yet another clash between police and the Occupy movement: around 30 activists from Occupy London Stock Exchange broke away as the march rounded Trafalgar Square, dashing across the flagstones and throwing up pop-up tents around Nelson’s Column in a matter of minutes.

Police originally held back, with one camper drawing laughter as he congratulated the officers on “upholding their oath to protect and serve the Olympic Clock” — a reference to clashes with protesters in the Square in March amid claims of vandalism.

But police moved in just over an hour later, arresting around a dozen of the campers for a public order offence — deviation from the authorised march route.

Occupied Times reporter Mircea Barbu was among those arrested.

Meanwhile in nearby Fetter Lane police kettled around 150 striking electricians from the Unite union who had sought to link up with the students’ march.

Even the march’s endpoint at Moorgate was subjected to kettling, with a further cordon near St Paul’s preventing protesters from rejoining the occupation.

A Tranquillity team member who did not wish to be named told The Occupied Times he was in a group of around 50 protesters held en masse while trying to get home at around 5pm.

Police told them they had deviated from the march route and ordered them to disperse, he said.

The group was escorted to Farringdon police station more than a mile away before being issued street bail, he said.

But many protesters remained optimistic: second-year Sussex University sociology student Elsie told The Occupied Times the day’s events were a sign of things to come.

“This is a moment when people are realising that even our left-wing parties are actually quite right-wing.

“It’s a time when people on the streets are important — not politicians,” she said.

By Rory MacKinnon