The Party’s Not Over: Network politics and the 2010-11 UK Student Movement

Abstract

In late 2010 a mass student movement emerged in the UK in a series of spectacular demonstrations and a wave of occupations in response to the trebling of university tuition fees and the education cuts of the Tory-LibDem coalition. There followed a debate about its organisational forms in which "organising without organisations", Internet organising and a leaderless movement of autonomous groups became prominent themes. This intervention uses examples from the movement to argue that this model cannot deal with a number of issues necessary if it is to be sustainable and effective in bringing about radical political change: forms of democracy and accountability; the determination and implementation of a political strategy; and the formation of political organisations that can attract long term commitment and go beyond individualised responses. This suggests limitations to this model as an organisational strategy for the movement.