Are we witnessing the beginning of a new era of protest and collective action? Certainly political events in the UK seem to have long demanded one. A better question than “why now?” might be “what took us so long?”. The decade of austerity since the financial crash of 2008, the hollowing out of public services, the broken housing market, the sight of British people queueing at food banks and children going hungry at school, the ever greater gap between the haves and have-nots, the many environmental crises, all seem for too long to have been measured not in shared demands but in individualised anxiety. Since the 1980s we have become used to solidarity being replaced by precariousness, with all the consequent fallout in living standards and mental health.
This winter however – beginning with Saturday’s “day of action” – promises strikes across the workforce, from criminal barristers to nurses, teachers to postal workers. Beyond that, a generation that has grown up atomised and anonymous on social media appears to be slowly discovering the power of a collective voice in groups organised outside or alongside political parties and trade unions.
