Written the day before the planned June 30th general strike, this article examines the rising repression against protests in the UK, the historical mindset that makes it possible, and how people are continuing to resist. British unions were predicting a walkout of as many as 750,000 public sector workers on 6/30 to protest budget cuts and drastic changes in the public pension system:
Will the Revolution Begin in London?
by Laurie Penny, in Adbusters
Excerpt:
One year ago, the British left looked longingly across the channel to Europe, where ordinary people were actually putting up a fight. It seemed impossible that Britain, the briefcase-clutching auditor of supply-side economics, could ever hope to muster similar public dissent to the global austerity consensus our leaders helped broker. But now, we’ve already seen Metropolitan police on horseback charging thousands of rioting teenagers at the gates of Parliament. We’ve seen mass arrests for civil disobedience, hundreds of thousands on the streets in protest, and the birth of a smart, popular counterculture that seeks to contaminate the brand structure of casino capitalism. It began in November, when student protesters demonstrating against the privatization of higher education deviated from the march route and smashed up the headquarters of the party in government. It has now become a national movement, led by young people organizing nonhierarchically. It can happen anywhere if it can happen in Britain.
Photo and further updates c/o The Guardian. More updates at http://london.indymedia.org/.
