Socialist Appeal - Student protest in London

Student protest in London – what next?

By Adam Booth

Friday, 27 February 2009

At midday on Wednesday 25th February over 1,000 students from over 20 universities, schools, and colleges, along with recent graduates and young workers, gathered outside the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) to protest (nominally at least) over the issue of top-up fees for university tuition.

First of all, some background. Up until 2006-07, any student at university would be required to pay somewhere between nothing and £1,250 for tuition, and could receive up to £4,000 as a student loan, both of which were means-tested based on parents income. Whilst this was vastly better than what students currently face now, we should not forget that only a generation ago tuition fees were zero for everyone, and everybody received a grant, i.e. money they didn't have to pay back! After 2006-07, all students at University were charged "top-up fees", which could be anything up to a "cap" of £3,200 per year. It was recognised by all at the time that this was just the first step, and that the cap of £3,200 would eventually be removed, opening the floodgates for universities to charge whatever extortionate rates they felt like. Lo-and-behold, only a few years later, and talk of removing the cap and fully exposing universities to the market is back on the agenda. All of this has happened under the watch of New Labour since they came to power in 1997.

Having realised their power and found their voice over the past couple of months through the occupation of campuses, university students, under the banner of the national campaign of "Another Education is Possible", marched through the streets of London from the University of London Union (ULU) to outside Kings College London (KCL), with a mood that was both militant but also jovial, with chants such as "Gordon Brown's a Tory, he wears a Tory hat; and when he saw our top-up fees, he said 'I'll double that'".

However, whilst it was encouraging to see so many students and youth actively protesting, it was clear that the protest suffered from the same problems as the recent occupations. Firstly, the composition is still very diverse; all the sects had a presence, and there was a large and noticeable anarchist involvement. Talking to a comrade about my experiences during the Cambridge occupation, I was quickly accosted by some masked students, clad in black, who confronted me over my criticism of "consensus decision making" and the way in which it stifles progression. Midway through the march a large group of anarchists also chose to take "direct action" and sit down in the middle of a road that was already closed for us to march along. This ineffectual and futile attempt at causing disruption did nothing but annoy the majority of other protestors as the police stood by and watched on nonchalantly.

Secondly, there is still no working class orientation to the student movement. There were a couple of chants mentioning the need for students and workers to unite, but in the pre- and post-march rally speeches, there was very little mention of how this was part of a wider social movement that needed to link up with the trade unions. Much of this has to do with the lack of leadership in the student movement, which certainly isn't coming from "Education Not for Sale", which is merely a front for the confused Alliance for Workers’ Liberty. Meanwhile the Socialist Workers’ Party is interested in nothing but recruitment. During the occupation at Cambridge I found that much of the discussion was directionless, and as soon as I made any concrete suggestion or intervention, things would progress much faster. A similar need for direction is needed in the wider student movement, and this must come from Marxists, such as Socialist Appeal comrades, who can intervene effectively and now reach a wider audience with our strong ideas.

Thirdly, there was no mention of the need to take over and change the only mass organisations that are available to students - their university unions and the National Union of Students (NUS). The NUS have stood back and done nothing to support students for years now, especially over the past couple of months, and Wes Streeting, the president of the NUS, has refused to back the campaign against top-up fees, and has condemned the recent Gaza protests. Meanwhile, many individual university student unions have refused to support any activism against top-up fees, and as a result many students were at the march on Wednesday in an independent capacity. The most progressive and radical of the student unions is at Sussex University, which has a very successful occupation, but which is now calling for other universities to break away from the NUS and form a new national student union based around them and a collection of other universities such as KCL and LSE. It is clear to supporters of Socialist Appeal that this is not the solution - the only way to change the NUS is to reclaim the union and remove the bureaucratic, careerist, bourgeois layer that currently rule it. A similar process is needed to reclaim all the individual university student unions.

It is only by reclaiming our unions and tying the student movement into the wider social movement of the working class and the trade unions that true change can ever be achieved for students.

What we should be demanding: