A spirited protest against austerity reportedly led by teenagers swept Bristol, England on Wednesday, drawing thousands to the streets and garnering widespread media attention just days after the country’s electoral lurch to the right.
The group Bristol Against Austerity put a call-out for the mobilization, declaring:
We want an end to austerity. An end to the right wing media who are allowed to run amok. An end to the poor getting poorer and the rich getting richer. An end to an unfair voting system. This protest is about standing up for all tha
Once the action was announced, support swelled dramatically, and the day of the protest, thousands of people showed up, flooding the southwest England city. Media outlets described the march as angry, enthusiastic, and overwhelmingly young.
One of the organizers, 17-year-old Hannah Patterson, told The Bristol Post, “We are just a group of seven young women. It was an amazing turnout, we didn’t really expect anything like it. We were talking on Twitter about how hopeless we feel, and we came up with this idea.”
A video documentary of the march can be viewed below.