The student movement accross Britain continued on Wednesday
24th November, with thousands of students and school students
demonstrating in cities
and towns across the country. Following on from the 50,000 strong
national
demonstration in London on the 10th November, an equivalent
number
came out to protest against the cuts, but this time in dozens of
separate
events throughout Britain.
The student movement accross Britain continued on Wednesday
24th November, with thousands of students and school students demonstrating in cities
and towns across the country. Following on from the 50,000 strong national
demonstration in London on the 10th November, an equivalent number
came out to protest against the cuts, but this time in dozens of separate
events throughout Britain.
Pictures from the protest in Cambridge
Most notably, the latest events have brought a new
layer of activists onto the scene, with thousands of school students joining a
movement that had previous been focussed mainly around the struggles of
university students. Yet again the students are at the forefront of the fight
against the cuts. The latest protests will only have served to radicalise
further layers of society, and will act as a catalyst for the labour movement.
Whilst the
majority of the mainstream media chose to focus their coverage of the 10th
November
demo on demonising those who were at Millbank Tower (the Tory Party HQ), there
have been many reports indicating that the student movement has gained the
sympathy of a significantly wider layer of society, who oppose the cuts and are
glad to see people fighting back. Polls conducted by some papers have shown
that the majority of the public supported the student protests on 10th
November (54% of Daily Star readers were in support of the actions at Millbank),
whilst trade unions leaders, such as Bob Crow from the RMT, and political
figures, such as John McDonnell MP, have called on the labour movement to
follow the example of the students in struggling against the cuts.
Having initially
started as a movement of the university students, the protests on the 24th
November showed that the student movement now has expanded to encompass the
school students, who walked out of schools en masse across the country to
support the local demonstrations. Young people as young as ten years old were
seen, and sixth form students – who will be the first affected by the planned
rise in tuition fees and who are facing the removal of the Education
Maintenance Allowance – were out in large numbers. Far from dying down,
therefore, the movement against the cuts is spreading, with each new
demonstration serving to radicalise a new layer of youth. In is only a matter
of time before this radicalisation of the youth spills over into the labour
movement and the anger of workers finds an expression through the trade unions.
Unlike the
national demonstration in London on the 10th November, the protests
on the 24th November were not concentrated in a single location, but
were spread throughout the country. Cities with large student populations such
as Bristol, Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester, Brighton, and Liverpool saw several
thousand attending protests in each location, with over 10,000 more converging
on central London. Occupations of lecture theatres and administrative buildings
have taken place in at least a dozen universities, including University College
London (UCL), Warwick University, and Oxford University, following on from
occupations at Sussex University in Brighton, UWE in Bristol, SOAS in London,
and several others over the last week. The demands of those occupying so far
have been for the universities to oppose the cuts to education and the rise in
tuition fees, and have extended to showing solidarity with workers, with demands
such as no redundancies of university staff and a living wage for all for
cleaners, caterers, and security staff. Some occupations have even posed the
demand of opening up the books. Far from being limited to demands about
education, these occupations are seeking to raise the issue of the wider cuts
agenda. The following statement from the UCL occupation is a good example of
this:
“We stand against
fees and savage cuts to higher education and government attempts to force
society to pay for a crisis it didn’t cause. Promises have been broken, the
political process has failed and we have been left with no other option. We
stand in solidarity with all those fighting these cuts nationally and
internationally.”
In places such as Manchester and Cambridge,
university and school students who attempted to occupy university buildings
were met with police resistance, and were beaten back with batons. Having been
overwhelmed by the numbers at the 10th November demo, police across
the country have seen the anger of the students and have learnt their lesson.
It is clear that, having been forced to act more peacefully following the
brutality G20 demonstrations (which ended in the death of a member of the
public at the hands of a policeman), the police have finished with any pretence
of being the nice guys who wish to protect the safety of ordinary people. As
Engels stated, in the final analysis, the state is armed bodies of men, with a
monopoly on the use of violence, in protection of nothing other than private
property. The government have clearly lost any qualms about using the police to
suppress demonstrations, with Michael Gove, the education secretary, calling
for “full force of the criminal law" to be applied
to activists “smashing windows to make their point” (The Guardian, Wednesday 24th
November 2010). However, much of the mainstream media is now openly emphasising
that these demonstrations have been “largely peaceful despite the images”
(ibid) and that the mood at the protests “reflects young people’s anger” (The Independent,
Wednesday 24th November 2010).
Nowhere was heavy-handed treatment more
visible than in London, where over 4,000 peaceful protestors were kettled by
police on Whitehall for almost ten hours. Similarly, to the 10th
November demonstration, the latest protest in London started with a carnival
atmosphere as students from schools, colleges, and universities came together
to continue the movement against the cuts. The police stated that their
justification for the kettling of several thousand students was to “prevent
further violence and vandalism”, with the case of a vandalised police van being
given as an example. It is debatable, however, as to the legitimacy of such a
claim, as the police van in question had been left isolated and unoccupied in
the middle of the road, and was likely an open invitation by the police to
tempt vandalism and thus provide a justification for kettling. In any case, the
forceful containment of thousands of peaceful protestors in freeing conditions,
including many young teenagers out on the first ever demonstration, cannot be
justified. Far from reducing violence, such police tactics only serve to
increase the tension of those on the protest, are often the cause – not the
cure – of any aggressive behaviour from protestors. The treatment at the latest
protest will give new young activists an education that no amount of money can
pay for – an education in what the police are really for.
Despite being contained for such a long
period, reports from those inside the kettle were that the festival mood of the
protest remained throughout, with chanting, music, and good humour. This
electric atmosphere – the combination of anger and excitement – was evident at
all the demonstrations across the country, as thousands of youth entered onto
the political arena and became energised and radicalised by the enormous
presence at the protests.
The task now is to channel this energy. Like
the steam from a boiler, the mood of the masses can be turned into useful work
if it is directed in the appropriate way. However, the mood of the masses, like
the energy in steam, can also dissipate quickly if it is not given a direction.
There are only so many times that the masses will come out onto the streets
before they become tired and stay at home. This direction of the movement
necessitates a leadership with a clear perspective and strategy. In the case of
students, this leadership should be coming from the National Union of Students
(NUS). Immediately following the 10th November demo, Aaron Porter,
the NUS president, attempted to distance himself from the actions at Millbank
and played along with the mainstream media’s attempt to distract from the real
focus of the march – the cuts. However, with other political figures coming out
in support of the students, Porter has been forced to appeal for the student
movement to widen out and link up with the labour movement. Mention of a
graduate tax as an alternative has also been quietly dropped by the NUS.
The NUS leadership, however, lack any clear
perspective or strategy. Porter’s only suggestion on where to go next is “to encourage voters to write to their MPs voicing their concerns”
(The Guardian, Monday 22nd November 2010); but, as was seen in 2003
during the protests against the Iraq war, politicians can quite easily ignore
demonstrations of millions, and have no qualms about dismissing letters from
angry voters, especially when the other main political parties offer no viable
alternative. In the case of higher education, the demand must be for free
education, available to all, funded by the nationalisation of the banks and
financial houses. This is the alternative that student unions, trade unions,
and the Labour Party must be demanding and fighting for. The task for students
now is to build mass campaigns on every campus, along with the local labour
movement, to have these demands echoed throughout all the mass organisations of
students and workers.
The occupations of university buildings in
the recent period are a positive step for the student movement, and should be
supported where they have taken place. However, in many cases these occupations
have been called at short notice with little consultation of the wider
population of students and workers in universities. We must point out the
limitations of such small-scale, isolated occupations, which, like
demonstrations, can be easily ignored by the university management. What is
needed is a mass movement that blockades entire universities through a
combination of staff going on strike and students occupying. Such a strategy
must be built for through the student unions and trade unions in every
university, and must be linked up with the labour movement in each area to
fight the wider cuts to public services, jobs, wages, and pensions. The NUS
should take a leading role in such a mass movement, and should link up with the
TUC and call for a general strike.
The recent movements of the students will
serve as a catalyst to the labour movement. Each new wave of demonstrations
brings with it a new layer of activists and serves to inspire more people.
Ultimately, however, it is only the working class, with the support of
students, which has the power to transform society. Workers and students, armed
with a socialist programme to nationalise the banks and industrial monopolies,
together have the power to defeat the cuts, overthrow the government, and bring
an end to the fetter on society that is capitalism.
