Student occupations restart

Submitted by Matthew on 2 March, 2011 - 9:41

Many thousands of students have participated in occupations, demonstrations and direct action in recent weeks.

On 29 January, around 10,000 students demonstrated in London and 6,000 in Manchester. In Manchester hundreds of students chased NUS President Aaron Porter off the demo, a crucial step in the chain of events which ended with him announcing he would not stand for a second year of office, the first president since 1969 to do that.

February saw student occupations at the University of the West of England, Manchester, Aberystwyth, Glasgow and Hull.

Students at the London School of Economics organised a flash occupation to demand their university breaks its links with the Gaddafi dictatorship in Libya — and won.

Then on the 24 February Day of Action called by the student left, hundreds demonstrated in London, and new occupations were organised at UCL and Royal Holloway.

At the same time, activists have organised left slates in student union elections across the country — at Bristol, Westminster, Hull, City, Edinburgh, Royal Holloway, UCL, LSE, the two universities in Leeds, Sheffield, Queen Mary, Liverpool, Southbank to name just a few. Most results are not yet in, but at traditionally deeply conservative Royal Holloway the left has won student union president.

Another thing to note is the high level of political consciousness involved. The LSE occupation over Libya is a case in point.

There is a widespread desire for unity with workers in struggle, and to some extent these links are being made.

At the moment militant activism is limited to relatively few centres. It is much more narrowly centred than before in London and the richer universities than at the end of 2010, when school students, sixth-formers and students at poorer universities played a leading role. While there are still many school student activists organising, the school student struggle has receded dramatically.

One problem here is that the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, which played such an important role in the pre-Christmas protests, has stagnated. A failure to create substantial structures has had costs.

It has produced a lack of coordination. The Sociaist Workers’ Party dominated the negotiations over a left slate for NUS conference in a way that was out of proportion to their size or the degree to which they represent the activist left in the student movement.

With UCU balloting for strike action over pensions and job losses this month, there is an obvious focus for student struggle in the period ahead. We should fight to maintain and develop the current level of student activity with a focus on supporting our lecturers’ struggle.

But to do that effectively we need national organisation, and that means putting the National Campaign back on a sound footing.

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