1985: How school students beat the Tories

Remembering 1985: How school students beat the Tories

Nancy Taaffe

A writer preparing a book on the history of the school student movement interviewed me recently. I was 15 when I became involved in the 1985 school students’ strike movement. It was at the tail-end of the miners’ strike, Liverpool’s city council had beaten Thatcher in 1984 and it was battling onto round two.

Lois Austin, Hannah Sell and me recounted how a movement developed (led by supporters of Militant, the Socialist’s predecessor), harnessed the anger and enthusiasm of 250,000 young people.

After the miners went down, Thatcher’s government brought in a fresh assault on young people. The Tories tried to introduce a Youth Training Scheme (YTS) which conscripted us into working for our dole money. Young people rebelled in their millions and defeated Thatcher’s plan.

As we talked about those days, we agreed that the amazing thing was the speed and intensity of how this movement developed – and the fact that it succeeded! After so many defeats in the last 30 years even I had forgotten that the movement that was part of my initiation into politics actually won.

With this vicious Tory government’s renewed assault on young people today, there are many reasons to believe that young people won’t accept what Cameron and Co have in store for them. They won’t just take it lying down.

A movement like this can develop out of a clear blue sky (like the one in Bristol last month) and take us all by surprise. To make such a movement victorious it has to be organised and directed to achieve its aims, it’s all too serious now to be a day out to dance.

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