History of British social movements Part 7

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This is the seventh part of a series of posts on the history of social movements in Britain. It includes 4 social movements: the Peace/Anti-War Movement, the (anti) prison movement, the student movement, Universal Suffrage Movement (The vote for men and women).

See a previous post that explains what social movements are.

Here is a list of the social movements covered in this series so far.

Part 1: anti-austerity movement; alter/anti-globalization, Global Justice, anti-capitalist Movement; anti-austerity movement: anti-racist movements; anti-fascists; anti-slavery/abolition Movement

Part 2: Community movements; Disability Movement

Part 3: environment movement; feminist/women movement

Part 4: Health care movements, Housing movements

Part 5: Labour and Trade Union Movement, Land Movements

Part 6: the LGBTQ+ movements, the Migrants and Refugee movement, and the National Unemployed Workers’ Movement (NUWM)

Peace/Anti-War Movement

Religious peace movements formed in Britain in the 16th century. In the 19th century, the London Peace Society was established and organised an international congress in 1843. The Workman’s Peace Association was formed in the late 19th century. British women formed “Olive Leaf Circles”, small groups to discuss and promote pacifist ideas. In 1908, the National Peace Council was founded after the 17th Universal Peace Congress in London. [1]

During the First World War, conscription was not introduced until 1915. The Independent Labour Party and No-Conscription Fellowship were against conscription. There were around 16,000 conscientious objectors, of which 1,500 went to prison. [2]

Following the war, several international peace organisations formed including War Resisters’ International, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, the No More War Movement and the Peace Pledge Union (PPU). The League of Nations also convened several disarmament conferences during the inter-war period such as the Geneva Conference. [3] I couldn’t find much on the peace movement during the Second World War.

Following the Second World War, the peace movement focused on anti-nuclear mobilising. The Campaign Against Nuclear Disarmament (CND) formed in 1958 and organised marches and demonstrations into the late 1960s.

From 1960 the Committee of 100 organised mass civil disobedience. In February 1961, 4,000 protesters sat down outside the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall. In September, 1,300 were arrested in Trafalgar Square and 350 at Holy Loch in Scotland where the UK nuclear submarines armed with US-loaned Polaris nuclear missiles were based. The authorities began to arrest and imprison the organisers. [4]

CND had a second active phase in the early 1980s in response to the increase of Cold War tensions so Britain replaced the Polaris armed submarine fleet with Trident missiles. The Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp was set up in the 1980s, which inspired several other camps in Britain and Europe. [5] There was a large protest of 30,000 women there in 1982. CND also campaigned for Britain to leave NATO and for the military alliance to be disbanded.

Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) was founded in 1974 to campaign for the abolition of the international arms trade. Faslane Peace Camp is outside the Faslane Naval Base gates protesting about the nuclear-capable missiles there since 1982. [6]

The activist group Trident Ploughshares was set up in 1998 to disarm the UK Trident nuclear weapons system, in a non-violent manner. They have carried out non-violent “disarmament” direct actions, and mass civil disobedience at the gates of based with Trident weapon systems.

The Stop the War Coalition was active to stop the invasion of Iraq in 2003. It organised a protest march in central London with over a million people. [7]

Stop The Arms Fair is a network of groups and individuals who have joined forces to put an end to DSEI and all UK arms fairs since at least 2013. 2013 saw anti-war protests over the conflict in Syria.

The international solidarity movement is part of the peace movement. Past campaigns include anti-apartheid, Vietnam solidarity, polish solidarity, Venezuela solidarity, Nicaragua solidarity and east Timor solidarity. Current solidarity campaigns include Palestine Solidarity, Kurdistan Solidarity, Cuba solidarity, Colombia solidarity, Syria solidarity, Egypt solidarity, Tamil Solidarity in Sri Lanka and West Papua solidarity.

This 2020 article describes how anti-war protests have been effective: “the anti-war mood and mobilisations have had a deep impact on military strategy. ‘The government’ they argue, ‘hesitates to deploy armed force, not least because it believes the public is averse to it doing so’”

This article describes the anti-war protests in March 2022, in support of Ukraine and against Putin. The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine resulted in a new phase for the UK anti-war movement and has resulted in controversy with anti-war activists labelled as enemies.

The dataset for Political protest in Britain, 1985-2019, lists ‘peace protests’ through that whole period. This article describes the global campaign to ban nuclear weapons.

Prisons

The Howard League for Penal Reform is the oldest penal reform charity in the UK. It was established in 1866.

This article describes the prison abolition movement in the 1970s including the group

Radical Alternatives to Prison. 1981 saw the formation of two groups. INQUEST is a charity that provides “expertise on state related deaths and their investigation to bereaved people, lawyers, advice and support agencies, the media and parliamentarians. Our specialist casework includes deaths in police and prison custody, immigration detention, mental health settings and deaths involving multi-agency failings or where wider issues of state and corporate accountability are in question.” It has a prison campaign. The Prison Reform Trust (PRT) is a charity established in 1981, working to create a “just, humane and effective penal system.”

Safe Ground is a charity that provides training programmes in prisons since 1995. [8]

The United Families & Friends Campaign (UFFC), is a coalition of those affected by deaths in police, prison and psychiatric custody, and supports others in similar situations. Established in 1997 initially as a network of black families, over recent years the group has expanded and now includes the families and friends of people from varied ethnic and cultural backgrounds. UFFC have an annual march.

Books Beyond Bars was formed in 2009 with the aim of “abolishing the prison system, supporting those harmed by it, and building sustainable collective alternatives.” The Bent Bars Project is “a letter-writing project for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, gender-variant, intersex, and queer prisoners in Britain. The project was founded in 2009, responding to a clear need to develop stronger connections and build solidarity between LGBTQ+ communities inside and outside prison walls.”

Joint Enterprise: Not Guilty by Association (JENGbA) is a grassroots campaign launched in 2010 by families wanting to highlight the abuse of the Joint Enterprise doctrine. The Reclaim Justice Network was launched in 2012 and was active until 2018. They were “campaigning to radically shrink criminal justice and build socially just alternatives. We believe in more social justice and less criminal justice.”

Empty Cages Collective was formed in 2014 to take action and organise against the prison industrial complex in the UK. It was active until 2021. 2014 also had a speaking tour and conference on prison abolition.

In 2015 an anonymous group carried out acid sabotage on a superjail’s foundations

Community Action on Prison Expansion (CAPE) was formed in 2015 and is a grassroots coalition of groups fighting prison expansion in the UK. Here is an article on CAPE and resisting prison expansion in the UK in 2014. Women in Prison (WIP) is “a national charity that delivers support for women affected by the criminal justice system in prisons, in the community and through our Women’s Centres. We campaign to end the harm caused to women, their families and our communities by imprisonment.” It has been active since at least 2015. We Own It has been campaigning against the privatisation of prisons and arguing for prisons to be publicly run since about 2015.

Here is an activist report from the G4S annual general meeting in 2016. G4S run several UK prisons. Smash IPP! campaigned between 2016-2020 against the imprisonment of people for public protection.

In 2017 the Empty Cages Collective organised the No More Prisons conference. There was also a tour around the UK of the Campaign to fight toxic prisons. The Empty Cages Collective and CAPE launched a campaign against four planned mega prisons.

The 2018 International Conference on Penal Abolition (ICOPA) took place in London. In 2018, Corporate Watch reported on prison expansion in the UK. Here is an NUS article on ‘Six things you can do to show solidarity with trans prisoners’. Novara Media have been campaigning for prison reform since 2018. Injustice: a documentary about British prisons from the view of UK prisoners. Abolitionist Futures is a “collaboration of community organisers and activists in Britain and Ireland who are working together to build a future without prisons, police and punishment.” They have been active since at least 2018.

2019 saw activists taking action at the construction site for HMP Wellingborough.

Anti-prison expansion activists halted construction by blocking a road. Another protest occupied the site. Here is a 2020 article on ‘What Is Holding Back the Formation of a Global Prison Abolitionist Movement’.

In 2021, there was a protest at HMP Full Sutton, East Yorkshire. Here is a 2021 article listing inspiring organisations and thinkers leading the movement for police and prison abolition. The book

‘Brick by Brick: How We Build a World Without Prisons’ by Cradle Community came out in 2021.

In response to the arrests of those involved in the Bristol protests in 2021, Bristol Defendant Solidarity has been supporting them with legal info to solidarity through arrest & court. https://twitter.com/BristolDefenda1

There have been several prison riots inside prisons over the years. [10]

student movement

This article ‘A Comparative Framework for the Analysis of International Student Movements’, discusses defining student movements and different types of student movements.

See ‘student protests’ in the Political protest in Britain, 1985-2019 dataset. This article describes the repression of the student movement from the 1960s to 2010.

The UK student movement started in the 1880s:

“Student political activism has existed in U.K since the 1880s with the formation of the student representative councils, precursors of union organisations designed to present students interests. These later evolved into unions, many of which became part of the National Union of Students (NUS) formed in 1921. However, the NUS was designed to be specifically outside of “political and religious interests”, reducing its importance as a centre for student activism. During the 1930s students began to become more politically involved with the formation of many socialist societies at universities, ranging from social democratic to Marxist–Leninist and Trotskyite, even leading to Brian Simon, a communist, becoming head of the NUS.” [11]

Here is a post on Scottish students and their changing relationship with Scotland’s independence from the UK between the 1920s and 2010s. The National Association of Labour Student Organisations (NALSO) was formed in 1946, to later become Labour Students.

In 1966 the Radical Student Alliance and Vietnam Solidarity Campaign formed with student involvement, both were key to the 1960s protest movement. [12] The first student occupation was at the London School of Economics in 1967 over the suspension of two students. The London School of Economics was occupied several times between 1967-69 in opposition to the appointment of Walter Adams as Director of LSE. [13] There was the 1968 student Grosvenor Square protest against Vietnam War.

Adam Lent describes several university occupations in 1968: “a considerable number of higher education institutions were disrupted by occupations and sit-ins demanding greater student representation on governing committees. Most of these ended peacefully with university authorities rapidly conceding to notations over student demands. The universities of Edinburgh, Leicester and Aston were among the most prominent as were the art colleges at Guildford, Croydon and Birmingham. The protest with the highest profile in this year, however, occurred at the Hornsey College of Art during May and June where the buildings and administration of the College fell into student hands for a considerable time leading it to be dubbed the ‘Crouch End Commune’. Following the disturbance, an inquiry was established. Despite being chaired by the moderate politician and campaigner Lord Longford, the inquiry committee condemned the College authorities and recommended that most of the students’ demands be met.” [14] Also see this article.

1968 also saw several confrontations, demonstrations, and disturbances against reactionary and controversial speakers at Sussex, Essex, Exeter, Bath, Cardiff and Oxford. [15] The Revolutionary Socialist Student Federation was formed in 1968. [16] Here is a document submitted by the University of Sussex Socialist Cub to the Revolutionary Socialist Students Federation national conference, in November 1968.

Adam Lent argues that the student and anti-Vietnam movements had little impact on the political conditions or popular consciousness of Britain. He describes how “a general loss of deference continued to spread, but active opposition to the Vietnam War and the revolutionary potential of the working class remained fringe affairs for most of the British population.”

But these movements’ real importance became clear a few months later, when these students, antiwar and leftwing activists founded the women’s, gay and lesbian movements. And that these movements really did change the way hundreds of thousands thought about themselves and society. And inspired others to mobilise in similar ways. [17]

The British student movement 1965-1972 thesis, investigates the reason for these protests at this time. Sarah Websters’ thesis ‘Protest Activity in the British Student Movement, 1945 to 2011‘, describes student protests at LSE and Manchester University between 1945-2011. She challenges the narrative that the most active times were the 1960s and found that there were more student protests at both universities during the 1980s (see chapter 4).

In the 1970s the NUS campaigned in defence of grants, helped set up the Anti-Apartheid Movement Campaign and campaigned to defend student civil liberties. Here is a description of students’ contributions to anti-Apartheid campaigns. There was a student demonstration against the Queen at Stirling Uni in 1972. There were student rent strikes at Sussex University in the 1970s. [18]

In the 1980s students supported the miners’ strike and here is a description of student activism at the University of Essex:

“I don’t think there was a struggle we weren’t part of,” recalls Director of War on Want Asad Rehman, reflecting on his experience as a student at the University of Essex in the 1980s. “You looked on television and you saw what was going on with the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the massacres in Soweto and they all mattered to you. Nicaragua mattered to you. No matter where you looked, we [people of colour] were being killed.” Asad joined the Black Students Alliance which was a radical political group at the University of Essex dedicated to fighting against racism and imperialism. During his time as a student, the group successfully campaigned for an anti-racism officer post in their SU, a scholarship for a member of the African National Congress and a Palestinian student against raising tuition fees and the prevalence of the National Front’s “Rights for Whites” movement in Essex.” [19]

University tuition fees were introduced in England in 1998. This resulted in several protests into the early 2000s. [20] The National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts was active from 1995-2004.

In 2003, thousands of school children walked out of lessons in protest of the planned invasion of Iraq. [21]

In 2009, thousands of students occupied lecture theatres, offices and other buildings at more than 20 universities in sit-down protests in response to attacks on Gaza. [22] Read more on the Sheffield University occupation here. Student Rights was active from 2009-2019, working to tackle extremism on university campuses.

2010 saw a series of “demonstrations in November and December 2010 that took place in several areas of the country, with the focal point of protests being in central London. Largely student-led, the protests were held in opposition to planned spending cuts to further education and an increase of the cap on tuition fees by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government following their review into higher education funding in England.” [23]

Across the UK, protesters occupied university buildings in at least 12 universities. [24] 2011 saw occupations and sit-ins at Birmingham University, and Cambridge University, over the tripling of student fees.

In 2012, The NUS organised their ‘Demo 2012′ march, over tuition fees, and about 10,000 people took part. Here is a critical report back from the 2013 NUS conference. We Own It was campaigning against student loan privatisation in 2013. Here is a report on the University of London student occupation of university buildings and repressive policing. Here is a report of student protesting in 2013-14. Here is an assessment of the student movement in 2014.

At the end of 2014, “Students across the country are staging occupations and protests after police were accused of using “extreme, disproportionate” violence to break up a sit-in at the University of Warwick…Students from a number of universities including Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield make up the list of groups occupying buildings on their campuses in a show of solidarity. Students from SOAS went one step further to occupy Holborn police station for at least an hour in the evening.” [25]

There is an interesting series of posts called ‘The Student Radical‘ on the Norwich Radical blog from 2014-18. Posts include the new student climate movement, the student anti-austerity movement, the student anti-privatisation and outsourcing at Sussex University in 2013, the free education movement, the #copsoffcampus campaign of 2013/14, on food and housing co-ops, the UEA Migrant Solidarity Campaign, and Transition Universities.

In 2015, students occupied the London School of Economics demanding free university education for all. There were multiple rent strikes at UCL in 2015 and 2016. [26] In November 2015, students demonstrated against education cuts. In 2016, “students demonstrated against controversial Higher Education and Research Bill in Parliament Square. Protesters demand a ‘free, liberated higher education system which values education as a social good’.” [27] There was a university rent strike wave in 2016 and 2017, starting in London and spreading nationally. [28] Here is a report back on the 2018 NUS conference.

In 2019, “there was the Goldsmiths Anti-Racist Action (GARA) in March 2019, led by students of colour. They successfully occupied Deptford Town Hall – the campus building with the most loaded colonial history – for 137 days, with demands that included the reintroduction of scholarships for Palestinian students and a commitment to tackle racism across the university. Then in November, students of colour at Warwick University occupied their Student’s Union (SU) after a series of protests and petitions against the speaking invitation extended to retired Colonel Eyal Dror of the Israeli Defence Force. They had similar demands, including an investigation into institutional racism in the Student’s Union.” [29]

2019 saw the youth climate strikes, with hundreds of thousands of young people walking out of schools and colleges to protest against climate change. [30] Also in 2019, Plymouth students were invited to hold a social justice protest at Tate Britain in London.

Here is a critique of Labour Students, the Labour Party student wing, from 2019. And another article on its undemocratic nature. In late 2019, Labour Students was dissolved by the Labour Party NEC. Here is an article advocating for a socialist student wing in the Labour Party.

In 2020, Cambridge students occupied university buildings in support of the UCU strike and against the marketisation of higher education. There was also the ‘Stirling 13’, “a group of students suspended after occupying a management building on the university’s campus, just outside of the historic Scottish town. Those behind the occupation held the management building for over a week, offering solidarity to University and College Union (UCU) members on an eight-day strike, and criticising the lack of mental health and student support offered on campus.”

At Lancaster University, self-isolating students who couldn’t get deliveries were asked to pay extortionate rates for food boxes – so the local Labour Party university club stepped in to provide food for free.

The end of 2020 saw student revolts, occupations and rent strikes over being lured back to university campuses during the Covid pandemic when it is unsafe and forced to pay rents they can not afford. See more details for Cambridge, Manchester [31], and UCL.

By January 2021, there was a large student rent strike wave with rent strikes were taking place at 55 of 140 UK universities. Here is some follow-up analysis. Rent strike student handbooks were recently created, see here and here. This article reports on the Bristol rent strike. In response, Bristol University passed the debts of rent strikers onto debt collectors.

2021 also saw students campaigning for a Covid Safety Net and students supported UCU strikes.

2022 saw students at Leeds University occupied buildings to campaign for fairer conditions for university staff. Here is a report on an NUS demonstration in London. This article calls for a renewal of student radicalism.

Trotsky students groups include:

Universal Suffrage Movement (The vote for men and women)

For a details history of this movement see ‘The Vote: how it was won and how it was undermined by Paul Foot. Here is a shorter history.

King John agreed to give some barons and powerful citizens property rights in the Magna Carta in 1215. The House of Parliament was first established as a political institution in 1265 when its first meeting occurred. This formed the beginning of free speech during a monarch’s rule. Following The Glorious Revolution of 1688, William III, Prince of Orange and Mary II of England had to accept the Bill of rights in 1689. certain citizens gained rights and protection from the power of the crown. It also introduced the principles of regular parliaments, free elections and freedom of speech within parliament. The 1701 Act of Settlement reduced the powers of the crown and created parliamentary sovereignty, making Parliament the most powerful government institution in the country. In the early 1800s, only 3% of the population could vote and it was only men who owned property and paid taxes of a certain amount. Some towns had no MPs and there were several ‘rotten’ boroughs with extremely small populations.

The start of the French Revolution in 1789 and the release of The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine in 1971 led to the first movement to reform parliament to give all men the vote. This was repressed by the government. There was another wave of agitation following the Peterloo massacre of 1819, which was also repressed. A bad harvest in 1829 resulted in food shortages in 1829/30 leading to further agitation and rioting for parliamentary reform. The 1830 election returns several reform MPs. A Whig government was formed in 1830 followed by the ‘Captain Swing’ upheavals. A reform bill is passed by the House of Commons and voted down by the House of Lords. Uprisings continue resulting in a new bill passed, the Reform Act 1832. [35] The act made MPs’ constituencies more consistent and extended the franchise (those that could vote) to include small landowners, tenant farmers, and shopkeepers. It also made the franchise more uniform by giving the vote to all householders who paid a yearly rental of £10 or more and some lodgers. 40% of adult males in Britain still did not have the vote. [36]

Chartism was a working-class movement for political reform in Britain that existed from 1838 to at least 1848. It took its name from the People’s Charter of 1838 and was a national protest movement. The activity was greatest in 1839, 1842 and 1848, when petitions were signed by millions of working people and presented to the House of Commons. Mass meetings were also organised to put pressure on politicians. After the Chartist movement faded in 1848, reformers in Parliament continued to press for the extension of the franchise. Agitation continued around the country. The Chartist movement did not directly generate any reforms. The Reform Act 1867 granted urban working men the vote so 60% of men had the vote. Of the Chartist movements’ demands, the vote for all men was not until 1918, secret voting in 1872 and payment of MPs in 1911. [37]

The women’s suffrage movement was a struggle for women’s right to vote. It became a national movement in the late nineteenth century with the formation of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage in 1872 and later the more influential National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). The militant part of the campaign began in 1903 with the formation of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). The militant suffragette campaign was suspended during the First World War. Then in 1918, the Representation of the People Act 1918 gave the vote to all men and all women over the age of 30 who met minimum property qualifications. This extended the franchise by 5.6 million men and 8.4 million women. Then in 1928, the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act was passed, giving the vote to all women over the age of 21 on equal terms with men.

The Representation of the People Act 1969 lowered the voting age from 21 to 18, with effect from 1970. The Scottish Parliament reduced the voting age to 16 for its own and Scottish local elections in 2015. [38]

Endnotes

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_movement#History
  2. https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/firstworldwar/spotlights/antiwar.htm., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_World_War_I#Great_Britain
  3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_movement#History
  4. https://cnduk.org/who/the-history-of-cnd/
  5. https://www.oxford-royale.com/articles/3-political-movements-from-british-history-and-what-they-achieved/
  6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-nuclear_movement_in_the_United_Kingdom
  7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_movement#United_Kingdom, http://socialismtoday.org/archive/73/editorial.html, http://socialismtoday.org/archive/74/stwc.html
  8. https://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/publications/cjm/article/reclaiming-justice-%E2%80%93-national-network-collective-action
  9. https://abolitionistpaper.wordpress.com/2018/12/14/interview-with-empty-cages-collective-uk/, https://theoccupiedtimes.org/?p=13767, https://theoccupiedtimes.org/?p=13778
  10. 1932 Dartmoor prison riot https://www.dartmoor-prison.co.uk/history_of_dartmoor_prison.php, 1987 Peterhead Prison riot https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-41397881, 1990 Strangeways Prison riot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990_Strangeways_Prison_riot, 2016 Birmingham prison riot https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-38350970, 2019 hull riot https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/history/hull-prison-riots-terrifying-damage-3000686s, There are multiple prisoner protests listed on the Political protest in Britain, 1985-2019 dataset. The 1994 book ‘ Prison Riots in Britain and the USA’ by Robert Adams divides the history of prison riots into four periods: “traditional riots up to the early 1950s; riots against conditions from the early 1950s to the late 1960s; collective consciousness-raising riots after the late 1960s; and from the mid-1970s, riots of the post-rehabilitation period which were fragmented in character.”
  11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_activism#United_Kingdom
  12. for a description of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign activities see British Social Movements since 1945, Adam Lent, 2000, p50-53
  13. Ralph Miliband and the Politics of the New Left, Michael Newman, 2002 p146; British Social Movements Since 1945, p46-7, p53
  14. British Social Movements Since 1945 p49
  15. British Social Movements Since 1945, p49
  16. https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2013/jun/15/student-politics-lse-revolution-1968, https://newleftreview.org/issues/i53/articles/anthony-barnett-a-revolutionary-student-movement, https://newleftreview.org/issues/i53/articles/revolutionary-socialist-students-federation-rssf-rssf-manifesto
  17. British Social Movements Since 1945, p55
  18. https://libcom.org/article/change-begins-home-student-struggles-around-living-conditions, https://libcom.org/article/student-radicals-incomplete-history-protest-university-sussex-1971-75
  19. https://gal-dem.com/what-we-need-to-learn-about-the-history-of-anti-racist-student-occupation-movements-in-the-uk/
  20. https://www.primidi.com/oxford_university_student_union/protests_and_occupations/protests_and_occupations_1990s_to_date, http://socialismtoday.org/archive//31/students31.html, http://socialismtoday.org/archive//32/students32.html, http://socialismtoday.org/archive//41/students41.html, http://socialismtoday.org/archive/47/students.html, https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/159/7817/26-05-2000/students-occupy-to-stop-expulsions-fight-the-fees, https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/326/9304/06-12-2003/scrap-fees-now
  21. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_the_Iraq_War#March_2003, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/2867923.stm, https://www.mrt.com/news/article/British-Students-Protest-Iraq-War-7901120.php, https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/mar/05/politics.schools
  22. https://socialistworker.co.uk/news/student-occupations-light-flame-of-revolt/
  23. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_Kingdom_student_protests; https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/11/the-millbank-revolt-10-years-on; Springtime: The New Student Rebellions, 2011, Clare Solomon, Tania Palmieri; Fight Back! A Reader on the Winter of Protest by Dan Hancox, Siraj Datoo, Guy Aitchison, Laurie Penny, Cailean Gallagher, Paul Sagar, 2011, https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/ourkingdom/fight-back-reader-on-winter-of-protest; http://socialismtoday.org/archive/149/students.html; http://socialismtoday.org/archive/149/students.html; http://socialismtoday.org/archive/163/students.html; http://socialismtoday.org/archive/173/students.html; http://www.solfed.org.uk/bristol/a-storm-is-coming-the-uk-anti-austerity-movement; http://isj.org.uk/the-student-movement-today/; https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/student-power-1968-2010/; https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/reflections-on-britains-student-movement/; https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/what-next-for-uks-student-movement/; https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/latest-british-student-movement/; https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2010/11/isse-n30.html; Student Revolt: Voices of the Austerity Generation (Left Book Club), 2017 by Matt Myers; http://liberalconspiracy.org/2011/02/08/why-the-student-movement-in-england-is-essentially-dead/; https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/reflections-on-britains-student-movement/; https://therealnews.com/ukstudentmovement1123
  24. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11847616, https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/students-forced-end-protest-occupation-1423804
  25. https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/12/05/students-protest-across-uk-solidarity-occupation-university-of-warwick_n_6275234.html
  26. https://www.independent.co.uk/student/student-life/accommodation/ucl-rent-strike-resolved-student-accommodation-in-london-a7120421.html, https://www.independent.co.uk/student/student-life/accommodation/ucl-rent-strike-university-college-london-student-accommodation-prices-a7081376.html, https://www.independent.co.uk/student/student-life/accommodation/ucl-rent-strike-university-pays-out-further-ps75-000-in-compensation-amid-accommodation-bills-row-a7043496.html
  27. https://www.independent.co.uk/student/news/students-demonstrate-rise-in-tuition-fees-higher-education-and-research-bill-parliament-square-a7144491.html
  28. https://wrp.org.uk/features/students-call-for-nationwide-rent-strikes/, https://www.padsforstudents.co.uk/blog_article/students-threatening-more-rent-strikes/, https://old.felixonline.co.uk/articles/2016-5-13-rent-strikes-spread-across-london-universities/, https://www.thenationalstudent.com/Opinion/2016-07-07/we_won_the_rent_strike.html, http://roarmag.org/essays/uk-student-rent-strike/, https://www.independent.co.uk/student/student-life/accommodation/largest-student-rent-strike-in-british-history-gathers-momentum-at-roehampton-university-courtauld-institute-of-art-goldsmiths-university-college-london-a7016766.html, https://www.independent.co.uk/student/news/goldsmiths-rent-strike-private-company-accused-of-trying-to-break-strike-by-requesting-early-payment-a6992946.html, https://labourbriefing.org/blog/2016/11/30/rent-strike-victory-for-goldsmiths-students
  29. https://gal-dem.com/what-we-need-to-learn-about-the-history-of-anti-racist-student-occupation-movements-in-the-uk/
  30. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_activism#United_Kingdom, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/15/uk-climate-change-strike-school-pupils-children-environment-protest
  31. https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/11/manchesters-student-revolt, https://libcom.org/article/manchester-students-rent-strike-victory
  32. Socialist Party paper The Socialists student tab
  33. SWP tabs https://socialistworker.co.uk/tag/view/36 and https://socialistworker.co.uk/tag/view/410
  34. student tab on the website
  35. https://tribunemag.co.uk/2021/06/the-struggle-for-the-great-reform-act
  36. https://www.kettlemag.co.uk/suffrage-in-the-uk-a-brief-study-of-the-history-of-the-vote/
  37. also see https://buildingarevolutionarymovement.org/2021/04/30/history-of-trade-union-in-britain-part-1/
  38. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_age#United_Kingdom
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