Advance Warning.

With malice, aforethought and full sinister intent Britain will be holding the Parliamentary vote on university tuition fees on December 9th. This is the issue that prompted mass student protests on November 10, November 24th and November 30th along with various university occupations and countless smaller, local demonstrations. Obviously students are planning to hold a very large demonstration outside Parliament on the day of the vote.

The plan is that protesters will assemble at the University of London Union (ULU) on Mallet street at 11:00(GMT)/05:00(CET) and march through the streets of London to the Houses of Parliament for 13:00. There they will attempt to lobby MP's to vote against the bill as the MP's make their way into the House. Then the protesters intend to hold a vigil outside Parliament fro the duration of the debate and the vote itself which is expected around 20:00.

Despite being hyped to ridiculous proportions there is little doubt that the bill will be passed because even if every single Liberal Democrat MP abstained there would still be enough votes from the Conservatives. So you don't need me to tell you that once the passing of the bill has been announced the protest is going to kick off like a motherf**ker.

The police's plan is to limit any violence to mere pushing and shoving by containing or kettling the crowd within Parliament square. They will then detain the crowd up to until around 00:00 before letting them out one by one and using the threat of arrest for prevention of a breach of the peace to collect personal information on the protesters such as names, addresses, photographs, fingerprints etc. In itself this is an illegal act because while prevention of a breach of the peace is an arrestable offence it is not a criminal offence. That means that the police cannot take people to court over it, they cannot collect personal data for it and the cannot detain people for any length of time after the threat of the breach of the peace has passed. So if the police do attempt to collect personal information the protesters are perfectly entitled to ignore them.

Beyond that I think the only advice I can give to anyone attending is to make sure they dress up warm. That means at least a coat, hat, gloves and scarf along with a backpack with plenty of food and water because if they do get kettled for 10-11 hours it's going to get very cold indeed. I of course will be staying in the warm and watching the whole thing on television.