This blog was first published by The Guardian on Thursday 11 November. To read it in its original form, click here.

Yesterday was a long day of mixed emotions for me and thousands of others who came from all corners of the country to join with us in London yesterday to defend education.

More than 50,000 students, lecturers, teachers, brothers, sisters and parents took to London's streets for a jointly organised NUS and UCU march against brutal government cuts to our colleges and universities, proposals to triple fees and cuts to maintenance support for the poorest learners.

I am proud that our hard work in building a public case to defend education brought together so many people for the biggest student demonstration in a generation. We had a clear message to send and together we sent it. I am proud of those who joined us.

This was the first step in holding politicians to account and using the democratic powers in our control in order to win our case. There will be a vote on the lifting of the top-up fee cap, probably before the end of the month, and I urged all those present to go back to their constituencies, to organise and to hold politicians to account. This is the only way we will achieve our aims.

Our membership rightly wanted and expected an opportunity to peacefully express their grievances and it was our responsibility to help deliver that. We worked closely with the police and authorities to agree the route and logistics to hold the powerful and emphatic but nonviolent protest on a crisp but sunny November lunchtime.

It was not only the weather that was on our side.

We had the economic case on our side for funding our future: all but two other OECD countries are investing in the education and skills they need to recover and flourish – the UK and Romania stand alone in cutting back, and a hike in fees would render our public universities the most expensive in the world for students.

We had the politics on our side: the only way the tripling of fees and irrational cuts to colleges and universities can be implemented is if politicians break the promises they made to voters, many of whom were present in Westminster yesterday.

We have culture on our side: the government's cuts would remove all public funding for arts, humanities and social sciences in universities and devalue our further- and higher-education system in the process.

And we have public opinion on our side: more than 70% of the public oppose plans to triple student fees according to the latest opinion polls. In unity, we convened the biggest student demonstration this century. We had right on our side and huge support to spur us on. Our case was right and it was overwhelming. It remains so.

Some of the most inspiring conversations I had yesterday were with parents who had only heard about the demonstration on the morning's news and felt they had to be there to support their sons and daughters on the march. They came, they saw and they marched together with us.

Not on our side were the very small minority of violent protesters – estimated at 200 – who sought to hijack our organised success for their own agendas. The organisers of this splinter action are not known to us but we suspect they are not even students. I make no apology for condemning the mindless violence of a few that tried to undermine the case of a great many. I wish that rather than spend so much of our time talking about that reckless minority that we had more opportunity to talk about the real issues that brought so many people out on the streets.

That violence by a tiny minority sought to detract from our powerful collective message and let students down. We will never defend those who took actions that put innocent people's lives at risk. Indeed, I notice that none of those who unleashed violence on innocent people have been willing to comment in public. They simply cannot defend the indefensible.

I have a responsibility to carry our message forward and build our case. Our cause is too important to be undermined.