Can law breaking be justified?

In the aftermath of the student union protest in central London and the condemnation that particular groups of students have faced over their actions, it must be asked how far can someone go in defence of their beliefs. This does not necessarily entail violence but that too should be examined.

In Britain there is a (lengthy) procedure revolving around the organisation of a protest which crucially involves seeking the permission of the police. This for me undermines democracy, while the home office has no official "control" over policing (according the home secretary at least) policing is none the less an institution of the state and, as seen during the student union protest, defends the state if need arises. If protest cannot be conducted fairly within the law, with the police having the right to veto certain protest, as has happened in the past with radical Islamic protest's, is it not then a case to circumvent the legal means of protesting and conduct protest illegally ? My personal opinion is that many successful protests through out history have been illegal and that if you want to get a message across one of the best ways is through public disobedience. An occupation of London by students would have been a truly magnificent event in my opinion, for students to simply lie down in the streets and not react to any police who tried to clear them.

However the real issue of the student protest was the violent demonstrations outside Tory HQ, the question that must be asked is whether or not you can use violence/vandalism as a form of protest. The actions of the students who were engaging in violence was fairly immature, this must be said, as the violence was devoid of thought, they simply acted against those who they deemed responsible. A good example of mature vandalism was a group of protesters who attempted to paint "Gordon Bin It" on the chimney of Kingsnorth plant in Kent. The result was 30,000 pounds worth of damage but the ensuing court case deemed that the damage done by the power stations to the environment was significantly greater then the damage done by the protest. Now if the protesters at Tory HQ had abseiled down the side of the building and spray painted the collective wealth of the Con-Dem MPs along with their personal contribution to education, it would have been a far more respectable form of protest, as opposed to a violent shambles.

The issue is obviously one that divides people, and with more protests against the Coalition likely to happen this issue will arise more and more frequently. Another thing to consider is whether or not we will see the police become more violent, they were visibly restrained during the student protests, and seemed at times to be almost non existent, we could potentially see many more violent clashes between heavy handed police and protesters.