UKIP backed free education demo when NUS didn’t

Gutless anoraks at the NUS didn’t support the thousands of students who marched for free education in London – but anti-immigration loons at UKIP were all for it. 

Over 5000 students marched in central London against tuition fees yesterday.

And while NUS boss Toni Pearce – who never attended uni – refused to support the demo, UKIP education spokesman Paul Nuttall was in favour.

Bigging up his prophetic credentials, Nigel Farage’s right-hand man, Paul, said: “I was opposed to tuition fees from the start, I rightly thought they would saddle bright young people with a debt that many could never repay.

“I also correctly believed that they would hit students from poorer backgrounds the hardest.

“These students go off to university with no concept of the debt that they will rack up in the following three years and UKIP thinks it is wrong they should be saddled with such a millstone around their necks.”

UKIP Education spokesman Paul Nuttall MEP has expressed backing for students who are protesting today in London: http://t.co/CJEqsKkYwq

— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) November 19, 2014

But an hour after Paul’s baccy-stained boss Nigel shared the statement, UKIP’s only MP, Douglas Carswell blasted the “violence and thuggery” of students who defied police and broke down fences to storm Parliament Square.

We caught him in an exclusive interview.

While UKIP bosses were in favour of the free education demo, coincidentally, the NUS passed a motion to oppose UKIP earlier this year.

The march began to the tune of a samba band in Malet Street home to the headquarters of the University of London and the graveyard of the notoriously radical union it closed down last summer.

Coach-loads of vocal students from as far afield as Aberdeen and Stirling assembled with placards and a repertoire of classic marching songs.

Crowd favourites included: “I say Tory, you say scum”, “Tuition fees, no way, make the greedy bankers pay” and “Fuck off back to Eton”.

They made their way to Westminster where rowdy anarchists led a crowd of protestors through barricades onto Parliament Square.

Yamir Ash from The Tab King’s filmed the demonstrators moving onto the square.

By sunset the demonstration died down, with only a handful of cold protestors staying on the square.

A police spokesman confirmed 11 were arrested on charges of affray and assaulting officers.