Oscar Williams from the University of Nottingham’s Impact investigates the aftermath of the student protests, with exclusive interviews from senior members of the NUS and prominent protesters in Britain:

I’ve been investigating the plight of the British student protester on and off for nearly two months now and if I’ve learnt one thing, it’s that people are scared to talk. Students who started their university careers with a voice, shouting loud and clear through megaphones on campuses and chanting in city centres, students angry about tuition fees, angry about cuts to university funding, angry about public sector pensions and angry about tax evasion, have been silenced.

At the start of this investigation, sixty emails were sent to societies and political groups at over twenty universities around the country. I received just an ominous two responses. One was a dud and one was a lead.

From there, I contacted people within the NUS who were willing to speak to me. But the hard truth still stands that many of those who were the most active, many of those who have been the most outspoken over the past couple of years, have been stunned into conscious noiselessness. As Laurie Penny wrote in late March, unless you’re looking for trouble, it’s best to “sit down” and “shut up”.

Nottingham seems to have always been a relatively politically apathetic university. Even at the height of public dissent during the Callaghan years in the 70s, Nottingham students remained on the most part meek and timid…

Full story here.