Winter is a lethargic season. It’s the harsh winds, misty skies and an early retreating sun. It’s the grey blur between November and January – a climate, which relies on slowing down and rest.
However, taking to the streets when conditions are the harshest, is the very essence of protest. Refusing the comfort of the inside, highlights why movements cannot and do not wait for the weather to change.
Winter Protest in local context
In Glasgow, blackouts by 4pm don’t shrink protest but rather amplify it. From Fight the Night, to picket lines outside the Village Hotel and St Enoch’s VUE Cinema, the message is clear; change is urgent regardless of the season.
On November 27th, student bodies of Glasgow University and Strathclyde, led by the SRC, QMU and GUU, gathered at the University Gate, heading towards Buchanan Steps. This vital march is part of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender Based Violence. Defying the depths of winter, pedestrians walk on roads, in protest of safer streets.
Inspired by the 1960 assassination of the Mirabal sisters, November 25th marks the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. While such violence is not bound to one season, the “Fight the Night March” – always assigned for deep winter- illuminates the peak. Dark streets already impose dangers for everyone, but this period also heightens the systemic dangers for vulnerable groups.
Walking amongst many, protesters rallied under the banner of ‘Not in Our Name’. The campaign was a direct strike at ongoing media narratives that weaponise gender-based violence to blame minorities, particularly immigrant and transgender communities. It has become a symbol of intersectional resistance, which demands that safety should not come at the expense of others.
Similarly, the industrial action at the Village Hotel and VUE Cinema expose a modern urban reality; the city’s late night economy is often carried on the backs of the young.
The truth is, that while both these corporations remain highly profitable – their practices do not equate ethically. From failing to provide safe transport after late shifts, trade union representation, fair contracted hours and a living wage – especially for those under twenty-one – the burdens of winter are always felt by the individuals rather than the CEOs. It is routine for workers on “flexible” contracts to navigate the city in the dead of dark, or pre-dawn chill. In winter, where rising cost of living already does not equate with wages, young workers are not exempt from its consequences.
Fortunately, in response every day this winter, these workers stand on picket lines, no matter rain, frost or wind demanding change and proper working conditions. Together these pickets are not just an “inconvenience” for leisure industries, but rather symbolise a broader theme. That labour and livelihood is worth more than capitalist growth.
ICE PROTESTS IN THE US
This same resilience is echoed across the Atlantic, to where hundreds of thousands have braved subzero temperatures to stand on ICE. Amidst blankets, and makeshift fires on the road side, it is clear Winter does not halt mass movements, but rather sharpens the stakes and emphasises its survival.
For a country historically defined as the ‘land of the free,’ the United States are complicit hypocrites. It is the land of the free only until your freedoms no longer align with theirs. This is consistently evident but especially now in the violent escalation of ICE protests, and detainments. However, from car horns blaring warnings of suspected ICE raids, to frog brigades, there has been a variety of different forms of protest flooding to the streets.
In Minnesota we are seeing tens of thousands take to the streets, businesses shutting their doors, young people walking out of schools and communities joining in solidarity against ICE raids. Even as temperatures plunged to –20, people continued to gather in the snow. On the 2nd of February, it was announced that Minnesotan residents have been nominated by The Nation for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize. Their actions demonstrate resilience and determination in depths of winter and a landmark historical moment for protests, democracy and peaceful activism.
This is not just exempt to the United States. We can see this most clearly with the rising political winter in the UK. The ongoing rise of Reform UK and mindlessly predictable racist rhetoric towards our own migrant communities are aided by its climate. A climate that is designed to make us seek the comfort of the inside, designed to make outside protest and the streets quieter.
However, as global movements will continue to show us, winter forces us to build communities against them. From standing outside hotels against far right groups who harass asylum seekers, to the Buchanan steps chanting in solidarity. The simple truth is there are always – more of us than there are of them. Autocratic power, much like winter, is temporary and its ability to be sustained by fear – never lasts.
In summary
Winter is cold, it is dark and it is tricky, but it also creates the very conditions that make protest unavoidable. Whether it is Fight the Night that exposes dangers on our own streets or strikes at the VUE and Village, revealing how economic insecurity is often offloaded onto individual workers – winter does not conceal inequality, it strengthens it. As the ongoing protests in Minnesota will continue to demonstrate, ice does not deter communities. It is in fact those very conditions which expose systemic problems so severe that gathering is necessary.
In a world where protesting increasingly coexists with surveillance, suppression, and violence, symbolism matters. Protest must not only mobilise numbers, but also perform visible defiance. That demands winter visibility—standing outside, in the cold, refusing to disappear.
Scarlet Morrison (she/her)
qmunicatemagazine.co.uk 