Occupy London Stock Exchange, ten years on

Occupy London. Source: Nathan Meijer/Flickr

Friday marked a decade since Occupy London Stock Exchange took up residence outside St Paul’s Cathedral. The original Occupy LSX plan was to meet up at St Paul’s, then move to occupy Paternoster Square, outside the Stock Exchange itself and home to a number of investment banks. But the square is privately owned, an injunction was granted to prevent anyone entering – enforced by the police – and so we were pushed back to St Paul’s churchyard instead. Two days later – ten years ago as I write – this list of demands was agreed by the 500 or so occupying the churchyard and attending its General Assemblies:

1. The current system is unsustainable. It is undemocratic and unjust. We need alternatives; this is where we work towards them.

2. We are of all ethnicities, backgrounds, genders, generations, sexualities, dis/abilities and faiths. We stand together with occupations all over the world.

3. We refuse to pay for the banks’ crisis.

4. We do not accept the cuts as either necessary or inevitable. We demand an end to global tax injustice and our democracy representing corporations instead of the people.

5. We want regulators to be genuinely independent of the industries they regulate.

6. We supported the strike on the 30th November and the student action on the 9th November, and actions to defend our health services, welfare, education and employment, and to stop wars and arms dealing.

7. We want structural change towards authentic global equality. The world’s resources must go towards caring for people and the planet, not the military, corporate profits or the rich.

8. The present economic system pollutes land, sea and air, is causing massive loss of natural species and environments, and is accelerating humanity towards irreversible climate change. We call for a positive, sustainable economic system that benefits present and future generations.

9. We stand in solidarity with the global oppressed and we call for an end to the actions of our government and others in causing this oppression.

10. This is what democracy looks like. Come and join us!

The next few weeks and months saw St Paul’s churchyard play host to rounds of meetings, seminars, and discussions. New sites were occupied at Finsbury Square and, perhaps most spectacularly – and certainly appreciated in the worsening weather of late October London – the disused UBS building on Sun Street, a short walk from St Pauls. Smaller actions