Today around 300 school, college and university students took to the streets of Leeds to protest the Tories and Lib Dems plans to wreck our education system. The police had tried to discourage the march from occurring by harassing and repeatedly threatening the Occupation’s press officer, Ian Pattison, with arrest for organising an illegal demonstration. Leeds University had also tried to minimise attendance by threatening the occupation with eviction.

As the demonstration gathered outside Leeds Met Student Union, it became clear how worried the police were about the potential for militant direct action arising from the march. Several police vans, over a hundred cops (both regular and riot varieties) and a number of police horses were deployed to stop protestors from expressing their anger with the Con-Dem destruction of Higher Education.

In spite of the freezing weather and the ever-present eyes of the law, we marched around town with considerably less resistance than we faced on the 30th. Police attempts to arrest an activist (for the laughable offence of calling an officer a wanker) were stopped by the determined and united crowd. We rallied outside the town hall, where protestors angrily demanded that the Labour council refuse to implement any cuts on behalf of the Tories, and that they support all trade unions and students fighting the Tories’ measures.

After this angry rally, protestors headed back up to Leeds University campus, broke and ran away from their police escorts, and marched into the Roger Stevens building to show solidarity with the UCU, who were holding a meeting there. We ran in and out of campus buildings (getting a wink of approval from campus security) before heading back to the main road through town to block it off for a while. Afterwards some activists headed back to the occupied Michael Sadler building, while others went to Leeds Uni Union to temporarily occupy a Santander bank, temporarily turning it into a rave.

Overall the day was enjoyable and no-one got arrested (successfully). It would have been nice to tell the Labour councillors to not make any cuts face-to-face in the warmth and comfort of their council chambers, but the heavy police presence and the thick doors of their offices kept protestors out in the cold. Next time we will be in London, our numbers will be stronger, and our determination to stop the cuts greater than ever before.

Over 600 students braved the snow and sub-zero temperatures in Leeds today to join in the second national Day of Action. The demonstration had been planned by organised anti-cuts groups at schools and colleges across Leeds after the hugely successful walkouts staged by 4000 students across Leeds last week.

The occupation at Leeds University which has been in progress since the 24th, played an instrumental role in building the demonstration through calling regular General Assemblies, which brought together hundreds of young people, teachers and trade unionists to co-ordinate our action.

On the morning of the demonstration, the occupation received a copy of a letter sent to Leeds University Union by Leeds police that complained of ‘difficulties identifying the organisers of the protest’ as well as noting the lack of intelligence surrounding the ‘intentions’ of the demonstration. Not having been granted a formal licence for a march, both protesters and police were equally unaware of the intentions of the other.

With a well-organised and democratically elected stewarding team in place, the protest rallied outside the university at 11am. Joined by Leeds Met and Leeds City College students at half-past, we formed up to march down to town. Taking the roads and breaking through police lines right from the start we marched our illegal demo down through the main roads of Leeds to the Town Hall.

At this point we attempted to resist being forced into Victoria Gardens where we faced the threat of being kettled and instead attempted to continue our march and occupy the Headrow – the main road through Leeds city centre. Despite our best efforts, we didn’t manage to break police lines, and the demo drifted into the gardens.

The overreaction of Police intelligence meant that they were fixated on preventing us from occupying the financial district, and despite this never having been the plan, we saw over 100 police officers drafted in from across Leeds to surround our march.

Because the police thought we wanted to occupy the banks in town, they were surprised to hear our demand to be allowed to march back up to the university and doubtless thought that the heavy police presence had persuaded us to abandon our plans.

Amusingly, it had always been the intention for us to march to town and then back up to bring the demonstration back into the occupation. This is exactly what happened, and the cold did little to dampen the spirits of an overwhelmingly school-age demo.

Ending up back in the occupation at around 1pm we were joined by students from Notre Dame 6th-form college as well as delegations from several schools that hadn’t walked out last week.

A mass meeting once again packed out the Rupert Beckett Lecture theatre, and in a massive improvement on last week, saw a lively but orderly attendance of well over 300 listening to speakers on an open platform. The loudest cheers were reserved for students staging their first walkout and for proposals to escalate action as the deadline for parliament to vote on raising tuition fees draws closer.

REVOLUTION members called for students to join the demonstration in Leeds on 11 December called by Leeds Against Cuts, where we will picket and shut down tax-dodging companies who contribute to the £100billion lost in illegal tax evasion each year.

The movement in Leeds is growing all the time with anti-cuts groups emerging at institutions with no history of student activism since the 1970s. A General Assembly has been called at the occupation for Sunday 5 December where we will vote on how to step up our campaign and maintain the momentum into the New Year.